Dir: Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico, 2008, 106 mins, Spanish with subtitles
Cast: Juan Pablo de Santiago, Maria Deschamps
Review by Richard Mellor
Young hearts run free in this Mexican melodrama, a tale of two troubled teenagers rebelling against - well, they don't especially know what. The adult world in general? The absurdness of society and its rules? Who cares - they're just rebelling, okay?
The impromptu separatists in question are Maru (Maria Deschamps), a pensive 15-year-old female with a curly mop of hair and piercing eyes, and Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the reckless and easily-agitated son of a fatuous politician. Shunned by classmates and given little attention by parents, the frustrated duo flee to a new land: an idyll unconstrained by rules or ritual.
Rather cutely, this Shangri-La turns out to be the roof of Roman's house. In a series of funny and sometimes boring sequences the pair come down and steal food, when the house is empty, and otherwise monitor their respective parents' farcical, squabbling bid to track them down. Meanwhile romance is stirring, but the cautious Maru insists Roman goes slowly, much to his horny frustration.
Eventually the pair decide to flee their former lives for good, grabbing a car and making for the country. It's at this point that everything begins to go wrong for them though and a story of charming children morphs into something much darker - something as adult as they could have wanted. Utterly unwilling to abandon their escapade, Roman and Maru become fugitives, their rebellion now very real.
Voy A Explotar 's ending, though a touch cumbersome, makes for suddenly stark viewing - in total contrast with the film's earlier lightness. And as well as seizing on their mood, Gerardo Naranjo's direction apes his heroes' bohemian ideals. He regularly shifts narrative style and chucks in sudden injections of pace. In some scenes his cameraman, perhaps bored, totally abandons the protagonists and instead zeroes in on strange objects.
Don‘t think that Naranjo's captivating tale is badly shot though. A giddy cocktail of blurry highs and all-too-lucid lows, it's a picture that perfectly captures its heroes' mood and mentality. Maru's unusual beauty becomes clear via moments of swirling happiness or intent anger, as does the fatal glint of brooding violence in Roman's eyes.
That glint, teamed with Maru's desire for freedom, helps explain the duo's rationale. For this is a less a film about a rebellion than about the need for one and the satisfaction of that outcry. Roman and Maru don't have any real politics and don't commit any great act; they simply want a tenet to believe in, an escape from their insipid lives. Each actor does a superb job twinning naivety with that prickling need.
As the doomed lovers swear eternal devotion to one another and as an eclectic soundtrack covers orchestral epics and dippy pop numbers, it's very tempting to label this as Bonnie & Clyde meets Skins (the Channel 4 teen show). But Naranjo's story, silly and solemn as it may be, is sharper in its focus than each of those efforts and unusual enough to deserve no comparison.
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