The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Undertow - "Brokeback Peru"
oilgun:
Well, I finally saw Contracorriente and it certainly deserves it's Brokeback Peru rep. It did succumb to melodrama (unlike BbM) and we could see the ending coming from a mile away, but it eventually won me over. I even shed a few tears a couple of times. I'm very glad I saw it.
I also found a great interview with the director which made me appreciate the film even more:
http://twitchfilm.com/interviews/2010/09/peruvian-cinema-contracorriente-undertow-2009-interview-with-javier-fuentes-leon.php
Excerpt:
Aside from the psychological meaning of the seaside village of Cabo Blanco, I've read interesting reports of the physical filming of Undertow in that fishing village and how the locals reacted not only to the filmmaking process but the film's content. Can you speak to that? Originally, you didn't tell the locals that your film had a gay theme?
Fuentes-León: Not at the beginning, no. We wanted them to cooperate in so many ways and I was afraid that they wouldn't if they knew what the film was about. Cabo Blanco is extremely religious. We didn't actually film Undertow's church scenes in Cabo Blanco's church. We dressed up a bar to serve as the church. Besides, Cabo Blanco's real church was proportionally huge compared to the small size of the town, almost ridiculously so, like: "God is here, boom!" [Laughs.] First, they wouldn't allow us to film in their church. Second, even though it was a real church it was way out of proportion to the town and I didn't feel that was what I wanted. But that's just by way of example of how religion had such a stronghold on this town.
My art director would jokingly comment that no one was going to believe that in many places I actually had to bring religious paraphernalia down from the walls--usually art directors create a space by putting things up--but there was so much religious paraphernalia on the walls that we had to bring them down. Again, that tells you how much a Catholic stronghold there was in Cabo Blanco. We knew that we needed a macho fishing village with a strong Catholic tradition; but, that we were shooting something that a lot of people were not going to be happy about. So at the beginning we decided not to reveal our intentions. When we were asked about the film, we were vague and said, "It's about a fisherman who is married and has a friend that the people in the village don't like and he's trying to show the people in the village that his friend is a nice guy." That satisfied them enough in the beginning. We actually decided to shoot some of the more revealing scenes--like Miguel and Santiago walking down the street holding hands--late in the shooting. I told my assistant director who was handling the shooting schedule that I wanted to shoot that scene towards the end because it was going to be a giveaway. In this town, male friends don't hold hands. But, you know, towards the middle of the shoot the villagers started to figure it out.
SFEnnisSF:
I'm glad you liked it Oilgun!
oilgun:
It just won the jury prize at the Image+Nation LGBT film fest in Montreal!
SFEnnisSF:
Reminder, this opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday 11/26!
SFEnnisSF:
Has anyone in New York or LA made it to see this yet? What are your thoughts?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version