Luis Fernando Midence | Lo que no sanamos (What We Don’t Heal) / 2022

the remnants of a relationship

by Douglas Messerli

 

Luis Fernando Midence and Bryan Valladares (screenplay), Luis Fernando Midence (director) Lo que no sanamos (What We Don’t Heal) / 2022 [8 minutes]

 

Marcos (Bryan Lemus), four years into a relationship with Héctor (Levi Ramses) is finally beginning to perceive that the communication between the two men has broken down. Time and again he tells Hector to clean up the cups and dishes he readily deposits in the sink. Héctor, busy with a book or other things, nods and verbally agrees with an OK, but yet doesn’t make the effort to change his habits in the slightest. And when Marco brings it up once again, Héctor again nods OK, and hands him a glass to clean up.

     Moreover, it appears that Héctor is dressing up to meet with a co-worker whose name we won’t even share with his lover. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t know him.”

     Marcos returns to the kitchen to find several dirty pans in the sink.

    It is now clearly another day, and Héctor is showering after obviously having wine and cheese with someone else, who has also brought him flowers.

     It doesn’t mean anything, he insists.

     “Oh no? And these flowers and the hors d’oeuvre, what?”

     “Did you think that maybe I did it for you to see?”

     Hector now declares that Marcos has been cold for him: “You’re never here. You don’t have time for me.”

     Marcos argues that he is not having romantic dates. “I work and all I want is to find my house clean and tidy when I return.”

    Each time he grows angry, he runs into a small bookcase outside the doorway, knocking over various difference pictures of the two men together. The most recent one is a strange photo where Marcos stands high above and apart for Héctor, stooping at a window.

     Yet again the sink is filled with dirty dishes and pans. At this point we can only imagine that Hector’s behavior is intentional.

      As he returns to the bedroom, he discovers that Héctor has left a trail of condoms. He lies naked on the bed. Marcos orders him out of the house: “This is not the fucking relationship I want.”

      Héctor insists that he is not going to leave yet. “This relationship is what you and I built together.”

      “Then it’s over. I stopped being happy with you a long time ago.”

      Héctor’s answer is lame one: “So why do you keep thinking of me?”

      This time when he picks up his own coffee cup, he finds the sink empty and clean.

      There is a package waiting, this time of Marcos alone, a cold winter view behind him.

    Has Héctor left, reminding his former lover what he will be facing in his absence, or is this the beginning, somehow, of Héctor’s reformation. We have to doubt the latter. Héctor has been told in uncertain terms to leave, and has hinted at his intentions for staying on just a little while longer.

       It’s clear now Marcos will have to carry on alone, with wounds that aren’t easily healed, including the loneliness itself. A clear sink, a fresh cold air view, but without the warmth and mess of human contact.

       For several years now Guatemalan director Midence has been making interesting films. The best of them was perhaps No Return of 2012. This was not among the best of them, but even here we see probing and careful thinking and writing even if it does not always succeed.

 

Los Angeles, November 14, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2026).