(2015, 92 min)
Country: Argentina
Director: Santiago Giralt
Studio: TLA Releasing
Language: Spanish/w subtitles
SYNOPSIS: Jess is a bohemian youth with secrets to hide from his shrewd parents. James feels trapped living with his irritable mother. After meeting for a sexual encounter, the two young men set off on a spontaneous road trip across rural Argentina to reunite with Jess’ estranged brother. On their journey, they confront strange occurrences and engage in a ménage ŕ trois affair that brings them closer. Their newly found affection grows, all while discovering a fresh vision of freedom and happiness.
REVIEW:
Jess has secrets to hide from his shrewd parents. James feels trapped living with his irritable mother. After the two meet for sex, they decide to take a spontaneous road trip across rural Argentina to reunite with Jess’ estranged brother. As they journey, they have several strange occurrences and engage in a three-way affair that brings them even closer. Their newly found affection continues to grow as they find freedom and happiness. This is a sexually charged road-trip movie, a love story, and a coming-of-age tale, set against the gorgeous landscape of the Argentinean Pampas.
Argentine director Santiago Giralt pays homage to Gregg Araki’s The Living End, but minus the threat of HIV. Jess & James remains survival cinema where the stakes are just as high but not ominous. The lead characters are trying to figure out who they are, what they want and where they’re going, in a world that is trying to force them into complacency and capitulation.
The film opens with a close up of an intensely good-looking Jesse (Martín Karichas) he is staring into the camera and we hear his voice over saying: “I’m 23 years old. My name is Gerónimo, but people call me Jesse. I hate my family. I hate my brother. I don’t know what to do with my life. Is this a trip or a dream?” Later in the feature we see where this fits and that the context is symbolic and supernatural.
Jesse hooks up with a cowboy-hat-donned James (Nicolás Romeo), but at first he refuses to kiss him. “I don’t do that with just anyone,” he snaps, right before penetrating him anally. After the sex, the two create a bond even though Jesse remains a bit aloof.
Both Jesse and James have lousy home lives. James resides with his vain, irritating mother (“If you get AIDS, I’ll kill you,” she yells at him) while Jesse lives with his clueless parents and has a pregnant girlfriend who is pressuring him into marrying her, even though he isn’t the baby’s father.
When James goes to Jesse’s place and asks him he’d like to take a trip with him, Jesse doesn’t hesitate to escape his identity-suffocating and spiritually debilitating life. The two take to the roads of rural Argentina and we see how much the two complement each other and also look alike a bit. This was undoubtedly planned and is writer-director-editor Giralt’s feeling on gay men’s desire for narcissistic doubling. As the film moves forward, they both wear torn jeans and Jesse occasionally wears James’s hat, adding to the confusion.
As they travel the two have a lot of sex and eventually meet Tomás (Federico Fontán). They have a three-way and even though Tomas likes James more than Jesse, they invite him to come along on the trip. Tomas decides not to travel with them.
By the time they reach Jesse’s estranged brother, both have gone through their own catharses, Jesse especially. He asks if he was on a trip or if he was dreaming. This made me wonder if what he asks might be true. Are Jesse and James complimentary halves of one whole? Once again the idea of duality comes up. If these two or indeed part on one person, we get an entirely different film. Director Giralt’s script is sparse and dense at the same time. He makes us think yet he also provides beautiful sexual pleasures for us to see. He captures beauty– of the Argentinean Pampas and of his three main players.
Jesse and James may (for a short time) exist in their own idyllic paradise somewhere beyond the end of the world, but we are always aware that they’re part of the new generation who are not at all prudish about sex and monogamy and who long for a new definition of happiness. This is a film that you do not want to miss.
-- Reviewed by Amos Lassen (http://reviewsbyamoslassen.com/)
