The Future / Il Futuro (Alicia Scherson, Chile/Italy, 2013, 95 min.)
UW Cinematheque, Sat Feb 8, 7pm»
The UW’s department of Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies (LACIS) will co-sponsor a series of films at the UW-Cinematheque starting Saturday, February 8. For more on the other opening night film, Aftershock, follow the link to the Madison Film Forum review by Taylor Hanley. We will follow up with more reviews for the day dedicated to the films of Pablo Larrain (Post Mortem, Tony Manero, and No). Meanwhile, check out the rest of the LACIS New Chilean Cinema schedule at the UW Cinematheque website.
The disappointing opening film, The Future (Il Futuro) is best seen as a character study of Bianca, a 19-year-old young woman trying to take care of her 17-year-old brother, Tomas, after the unexpected death of their parents. When the film takes Bianca’s plight seriously, and examines the sacrifices she has to make to stay together with her brother, it provides a showcase for a strong performance by Manuela Martelli. Despite its literary lineage, adapted from a novel by respected Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, other aspects of the film seem only a few steps away from a Cinemax After Dark presentation: a thin plot with shallow characters designed to set up awkward sexual tension between Bianca and an aging movie star (Rutger Hauer).
Bianca and Tomas are the children of Chilean parents living in Rome. When their parents die in a car accident, the social worker asks if they have anyone to live with back in Chile. Bianca and Tomas say no, and for anyone attending the New Chilean Cinema series, this is the last significant reference to Chile. If Bianca agrees that she can take care of her younger brother, they can stay together in their parents’ apartment and inherit their father’s pension. Bianca soon discovers that the pension is not sufficient, so she drops out of school and takes an entry-level position in a hair salon. The film is at its best when it takes Bianca’s ambition at the hair salon seriously. The small, quiet moments of the film are much more interesting than the sex trade / heist plot that emerges.
Tomas meets two friends who work at the local gym, Libio and Boloñes, and when Tomas offers to help them out for a few nights, they eventually de facto move in with Tomas and Bianca. There’s not much to these two new characters beyond the function they play in the plot: to provide some brief sexual tension with Bianca (including a throw-away sex scene), and to introduce a plan for a heist. From their work at the gym, Libio and Boloñes know about a blind aging bodybuilder who used to play Maciste in old sword-and-sandal films. They plot with Bianca to steal from Maciste’s safe; she only has to agree to prostitute herself with Maciste to earn his trust and access to his house.
This is where the Cinemax After Dark influences outweigh the literary ambitions of the film. Or, if we want to be more diplomatic, the Last Tango in Paris influences, with discussions like “What color is my cum?” filling in for the more notorious exchanges from Tango. To be fair, the relationship between Bianca and Maciste is often very tender, and Martelli and Hauer do their best with the material. Again, it is the quiet, less sensational moments that work best here, like when blind Maciste makes Bianca a sandwich. But then the massage oil comes out…a lot of massage oil (as can be seen in the still above).
From the conventions of the erotic thriller one would expect this scenario to end with a bang, but The Future ends with a whimper. I haven’t decided whether I like the film more or less because of that. I’m open to the possibility that I’m unfairly identifying what genre the film is supposed to be (erotic thriller is not quite right). But in dramatic terms, regardless of the genre expectations, the conflicts just seem to dissipate rather than find resolution.
Manuela Martelli is an intriguing actress and screen presence. According to IMDB, she was in two other feature films in 2013, The Magnetic Tree and Olvidados. I hope that more of her work reaches screens in the U.S. The only film of hers that I could find streaming currently is My Last Round, and I provide a link below.
Poster and Synopsis from The Movie Database
My Last Round (Julio Jorquera Arriagada, Chile/Argentina, 110 min)»
Hugo becomes captivated with Octavio, a middle-aged local boxing champion, but their relationship is tested when Hugo finds a new job in the city.
