{"id":7389,"date":"2019-09-09T21:28:25","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T19:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.queerlion.it\/?p=7389"},"modified":"2019-09-11T21:36:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T19:36:57","slug":"usa-the-hollywood-reporter-the-prince-el-principe-film-review-venice-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.queerlion.it\/en\/usa-the-hollywood-reporter-the-prince-el-principe-film-review-venice-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Usa, The Hollywood Reporter: ‘The Prince’ (‘El principe’) – Film Review | Venice 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chilean production designer Sebastian Munoz’s directorial debut is set in a prison in 1970, just before Allende came to power<\/em><\/p>\n

A pretty boy \u2014 or, to be more precise, an angular jawline and a head of lush curls in search of a personality \u2014 is thrown into a dark and dank prison in 1970 Chile in The Prince (El principe). For most people, this would be a horror scenario, but this feature is such a work of homoerotic fantasy, pilfering liberally from sources ranging from Un Chant d\u2019amour to Querelle and the opera omnia of Jean-Daniel Cadinot, that the protagonist doesn\u2019t mind being locked away with a bunch of handsy, well-endowed inmates for even one hot minute. Quite the contrary, as behind bars he\u2019ll find plenty of man-on-man action, cute bell-bottoms and perhaps even the homosexual Holy Grail decades before the age of marriage equality: love.<\/p>\n

Based on an obscure novel by Mario Cruz, this feels like the kind of work that would have played as quite radical in 1970 Chile, just before Allende was elected to replace a CIA-backed regime. But seen through the prism of the world we live in today, the idea that, for example, rape \u2014 or at the very least non-consensual sex \u2014 would be part of a kind of utopian, gay-prison fever dream feels icky and outdated.<\/p>\n

This directorial debut from Chilean production designer Sebastian Munoz, who worked on fellow Venice title La Llorona as an art director, will head to San Sebastian after its bow in the Venice Critics\u2019 Week. It could pop up at a few other Spanish-language cinema showcases and at indiscriminate queer festivals. The film, filled to the brim with barely clothed men but nary an idea, inexplicably won the Queer Lion in Venice<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Jaime (Juan Carlos Maldonado) is a blandly beautiful young man who\u2019s thrown into prison after he has knifed down a long-haired, not-very-talkative friend. He\u2019s put in a cell with just one bunk bed already occupied by four others. They include the clear alpha male and oldest of the group, nicknamed Stud (Alfredo Castro, Larrain\u2019s Tony Manero), who orders his young lover (Sebastian Ayala) to sleep on the floor so that Jaime, who receives the nickname \u201cthe prince,\u201d can serve as Stud\u2019s new bed buddy. The two attractive but largely ornamental men on the top bunk are also clearly in a relationship, though they don\u2019t do much else besides look at each other longingly, which almost becomes a kind of strange running gag in the background.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo survive here, you need to be a macho,\u201d Stud instructs Jaime on his first day. \u201cI\u2019m a beginner,\u201d Jaime squeaks in reply. But he does follow Stud into the showers, crawls into the bottom bunk with him and doesn\u2019t vocally oppose Stud when he penetrates Jaime anally, no questions asked and after having only met him a few hours prior.<\/p>\n

If there is an are-you-gay\/are-you-into-gay-sex sorting hat that was used by the 1970 Chilean prison authorities so they can put all the queers together in a cell, it didn\u2019t make it into the film. And even so, it is not like gay men would necessarily want to be penetrated by any other man they just happened to find lying around in their bed. It is also not clear whether there are, indeed, any straight people at all in this particular prison, which makes for odd viewing because the tone of the film is otherwise relatively realistic (there’s none of the poetry of Genet, for example, which could suggest a kind of fantasy element).<\/p>\n

The mysterious, broad-chested Che Pibe (Argentinean actor Gaston Pauls) sleeps in another cell but is also clearly not opposed to some hot man-on-man action, which he gets from the overeager young man Dany (Lucas Balmaceda). Indeed, Dany \u2014 who with his lighter curls and bee-stung lips looks like a negative image of Jaime, who has black curls and barely-there lips \u2014 is insatiable, casting longing eyes at Jaime even though both already have their hands full with another man. The relationships become so fluid that it feels like a flowchart would come in handy around the halfway mark to figure out who hasn\u2019t yet slept with whom.<\/p>\n

Besides the bed-hopping antics between a few cells, what passes for a story here includes some flashbacks to Jaime\u2019s development as a sexual being in the real world and to the young man\u2019s friendship with the victim (Cesare Serra). But these moments play more like nostalgic, stand-alone shorts than parts of a larger narrative arc that would shed some light on who Jaime is or has become and what \u2014 if anything \u2014 he wants out of life. It is clear he slowly becomes interested in men after having had a sexual experience with a woman, but there\u2019s no context or sense of how that makes Jaime feel.<\/p>\n

To make things even stranger, there seems to be zero opposition to gay characters or gay sex outside of prison, either, as if straight people were in the minority and they wouldn\u2019t dare to shame anyone for being different.<\/p>\n

The finale at least makes it crystal-clear what Jaime\u2019s position in the prison hierarchy is. But, again, there is zero sense of how the boy feels about it or whether he even wants that position. And Munoz, who wrote the adaptation with Luis Barrales, makes a final misstep in the closing moments, when he lets the reality of 1970 Chile intrude upon the prison fantasy he\u2019s created for his characters. What is a viewer, who by this point must have accepted the penal complex as a kind of alternate reality\/paradise for gay men, supposed to make of this reminder that a different reality exists outside the prison\u2019s sweaty walls?<\/p>\n

Castro is the only actor whose name will ring a bell for international audiences. He is clearly best in show here, imbuing his stock character with a sense of heartache and the type of bravado that comes from having been confronted with an eat-or-be-eaten mentality for too long. Maldonado, who has some TV experience, virtually disappears opposite the acting veteran. Indeed, people in much smaller roles, such as Pauls, Balmaceda and Ayala, leave more of an impression.<\/p>\n

Given Munoz\u2019s day job, it\u2019s perhaps not a surprise that the production design, credited to Claudia Gallardo, at least looks grimily fabulous. Even if it is made abundantly clear that the men in this particular prison didn\u2019t exactly come for the interior decor.<\/p>\n

Production companies: El Otro Film, Nina Nino Films, Le Tiro, Be Revolution Pictures
\nCast: Juan Carlos Maldonado, Alfredo Castro, Gaston Pauls, Sebastian Ayala, Lucas Balmaceda, Cesare Serra, Jos\u00e9 Antonio Raffo
\nDirector: Sebastian Munoz
\nScreenwriters: Luis Barrales, Sebastian Munoz, based on the novel by Mario Cruz
\nProducer: Marianne Mayer-Beckh
\nCinematography: Enrique Stindt
\nProduction design: Claudia Gallardo
\nCostume design: Carolina Espina
\nEditing: Danielle Fillios
\nMusic: Angela Acuna
\nVenue: Venice International Film Festival (Critics\u2019 Week)
\nSales: Patra Spanou Film Marketing & Consulting<\/p>\n

In Chilean Spanish
\n96 minutes<\/p>\n

The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> by Boyd van Hoeij<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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