Last night I watched a movie called “Sex and Lucia” on Comcast on Demand and I walked away feeling not only confused but a bit overwhelmed. I usually enjoy out of the norm movies or even foreign films because they have substance and are pretty visual and raw, which in my opinion are the best of movie making.
Anyway, I would like to state up front that the movie was in Spanish with English subtitles and although I understand a little bit of Spanish I opted to read the subtitles to ensure I wasn’t missing out on important dialogue. Here is the problem with movies with subtitles – the actual story sometimes gets lost in translation and what you think you understood from it sometimes is not what really happened.
The story from what I gathered was about a writer, going through a dry spell, meets his muse in a restaurant and with her help through sex, is able to get his creativity going again. Sounds good so far, you might say. Well, not so fast, what happens between the beginning and thereafter is where I got lost and I am sure most will too.
As the writer types away at the computer between his romp sessions with his muse, the story he is writing about is narrated in various scenes throughout the movie. It opens with a scene about a man who, having a one night stand on an island with a woman, impregnates her. In the weeks thereafter, as a result of her findings, she leaves her husband on the island in order to search for the father of her child. Then the scene immediately switches back to the writer abruptly leaving his muse, who is by now obsessed with him, in an attempt to end his life.
The next scene goes a little deeper into the story about the one night stand and then next thing you know the writer’s real life and the story he is writing about intertwine leaving the viewer (me) confused and baffled. Without giving away much of the story, I want to say the worse for me was not understanding the ending nor the premise of the entire film. I could not figure out what was real and what was conjured up by the writer for his book. I kept thinking that perhaps because it was in Spanish and I had to read the subtitles, I was unable to following the story clearly.
I do want to state also that this was the most challenging and entertaining movie I have watched so far and I do recommend it for all foreign film fans out there. Please do me a favor however, I want to hear from you if you understood the movie. Please explain the ending to me and its relations to the entire movie. Was it real or part of his novel? Oh and tell me if you recognize the actress who plays Lucia.
B-lot buzz 