@lamoviola
Genres, with their dose of bravery, is this week’s topic in national premieres. It is not just anything, since in the midst of an industry, which is accustomed to only one way of telling stories, leaving the canon is already an epic.
On the one hand, “Nudus” (Gibrán Bazán, 2024) arrives in theaters, with a script by the same director and photography, the most notable part of the film, by Sofía Ramos Mora, which tells the dystopian story, – from the beginning it is see respect for science fiction, which is not handled in a local way, the events can happen anywhere in the world – of a woman, in a not distant future, who wakes up in a room and begins to be interrogated by a man dressed in a black suit and knows intimate aspects of his life.
The woman asks about her daughter, but gets no answer. She begins a verbal fencing, a game of cat and mouse, where the script shows signs of skill, since the climatic and even suspenseful moments happen slowly but constantly.
Carla Hernández and Alex Cursa more than effectively transmit their roles as victim and oppressor. The latter knows all the secrets of his prey: there is no privacy and everything is known due to technology.
But “Nudus” does not remain anecdotal, Bazán makes a portrait of liquid society –Bauman-, with its soluble and well-intentioned ideology in the public display, but full of great contradictions and hypocrisy. The film is the x-ray of contemporary society, saturated with technology, the renunciation of privacy, which is fed by an essential element: the two lives of Homo Público and the internal emptiness. Nothing is kept, everything is shared and the consequences arrive sooner or later.
The subject could not be more contemporary and in the midst of a well-plotted story, with a direction of actors and the plot, which does not feel instructive or moralistic, moves smoothly. It may be the director’s most ambitious project so far, in which some of his concerns can also be seen, just remember “Spierlberg Generation”, from 2013.
“Nudus” is not superficial and is a good example of national science fiction, with its dystopian, ethical but not moralistic lines.
In the same genre tone, but from the mixture of film noir and horror cinema, is “Disappear completely”, which had its premiere on screens a little over a month ago and arrives on Netflix these days.
Directed by Luis Javier Henaine, with a script by himself and Ricardo Aguado Fentanes, the film also delves into an interesting aspect: the journalist as a character with his dose of stereotype but without falling into excess.
The look, a non-complacent x-ray of the red note and those behind its creation and towards the second half, horror as a generic proposal.
“Santiago” (Harold Torres, impeccable as always and in a successful casting, with his backpack on his shoulder where he carries his camera), is a reporter with a red, hard and bloody note, who has developed a certain cynicism when doing his job. He maintains a relationship with his ups and downs with “Marcela” (Teté Espinoza), who is dedicated to medicine and saves lives. Both are light and darkness at the same time.
One day, “Santiago” begins to lose his senses. What seems to be a symptom or an illness turns into a curse. From this moment on, the noir becomes a kind of Macguffin – a mirage so that the viewer does not concentrate on other aspects – and we travel to a horror that goes into a crescendo.
With references to the work of the legendary photographer Enrique Metinides, the film follows a tradition of national cinema where we have our own idiosyncrasy: black and horror cinema.
A more than effective story that is sustained by the rhythm and the performances, it comes to Netflix and is worth checking out.
So week of Mexican genre cinema. In rooms and on TV. Balance in favor these days.