Going out into the neighborhood and having to show his manhood to survive. This is what Carlos always has in mind, the protagonist of the Colombian’s first film Fabian Hernandez, A malepresented this Tuesday in Cannes.
But Carlos, who lives in a youth center in Bogotá, is not so sure, in reality, that he wants to become just another aggressive and violent gang member. He goes with the flow but, inside, he has many doubts.
“The film is torn between the intimacy that the protagonist has, where he can doubt even his sexuality, his femininity, his sensitivity (…) and what he has to show from the outside, which is to be a man”, explain to the AFP Hernandez.
The film revolves around “what society pushes you to be without you really knowing if you are that or want to be that,” he insists.
Carlos does everything possible to be well accepted in the youth center: he takes care of his clothes, his haircut, the way he walks and even speaks.
In this center, “the boys begin to expose their virility, to show who is the alpha male of the place,” continues the 37-year-old filmmaker.
But, according to him, this “social pressure between men” also occurs in schools and in institutions in general, “even in the highest and most democratic, such as the Senate or universities.”
When Carlos decides to visit his mother on Christmas Eve, he finds that on the street, he also has to be virile: he learns to use a gun and also visits a brothel with his friends, in one of the most revealing scenes of the movie.
“Duality” in the face
But when he’s alone, in his room, he almost seems like a different person. Doubt, she reflects, looks at herself in the mirror.
These experiences are the same ones that Hernández felt in his adolescence.
“When I was in my intimacy, he allowed me spaces in which he also asked me if I liked boys, girls (…) It was a space for experimentation even with my body,” recalls the director. “It is part of what we men hide behind closed doors”.
Although violence can be sensed in the streets of Bogotá, Hernández chooses not to film it directly, unlike many of the films that come from Colombia, where drugs and crimes are usually the protagonists.
“I decided to focus on something deeper, on what we could reflect on more, which has more to do with the social than with the most superficial, which is picking up a gun,” bill.
To embody Carlos, the director found Pipe, a break-dance dancer, at a rap concert, whom he immediately saw resemblances to him when he was young.
He acts all the time with that “masculinity” that he needs to show others, says Hernández.
At the same time, there is something androgynous about Pipe’s appearance, which clashes with the tough image he wants to give.
His face “generates that duality, it looks rough, but it is also very delicate, his face expresses tenderness, but also rage, fury,” the director says of him.
No one in the cast was a professional actor and for all of them it was the first time they were in front of a camera. But shooting with them was a great experience, says Hernández, above all to give them “an artistic opportunity, a recognition beyond the problems to which they are always subjected”. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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