175. End of the Century

Song - Barcelona (Freddy Mercury & Montserrat Caballé)

Movie: End of the Century - Fin de siglo (Lucio Castro, 2019)

The self-assuredness of Lucio Castro stands out, even before we reach the squeaking toy duck. End of the Century is a sort of Before Sunrise, set in Barcelona, only the lovers are gay and during the course of their conversation they find out they have met before sometime over 20 years ago. It hits all the beats you'd expect, but does so in a pleasantly unhurried way, without any of the pretensions or high-minded fussy tendencies that often creep into these kind of artsy debut features. A scene in which a character is reading a book, while the sentences appear on screen and are heard non-diegetically is a notable exception, but for the most part Castro directs as if he is a seasoned director of modest ambition, fully aware of, and at peace with, his skills and limitations. Nothing wrong with that; you don't really need the film to become more than it is, and never even anticipate it, but that's when the squeaking toy duck comes in.

As the film meanders towards its end, Castro suddenly reveals the true depths of his artistic ambitions. He presents it as casually as everything that came before, but by the time Ocho (Juan Barberini) steps on a squeaking toy duck, gets a carrot out of a fully stacked fridge and passes a beautifully singing woman on a Barcelona square, the whole film has been turned upside down, becoming something much more mysterious, lyrical and moving than it first appeared. It wisely never provides an answer to the questions it raises, though the final shot of Ocho is a mistake, as it opens up the possibility for the dullest possible interpretation of the film. Even so, this seems to me a highly successful attempt to merge the proud traditions of 'classic' European modernist cinema with contemporary progressive sensibilities. 

It's a mild spoiler to compare this to I'm Thinking of Ending Things, which made me want to see a more straightforward Charlie Kaufman film, one that focuses more on the mundane relationship drama. Kaufman's obsession with the mind is interesting, as as are his surrealistic flights of fancy. But his biggest strength is that he is an incredibly astute observer of human behaviour, with the road trip to the parents being of one the greatest examples of that. It's much stronger than the somewhat overheated histrionics of the second half of the film. Because Jessie Buckley gives one of the performances of the century, I still liked I'm Thinking of Ending Things quite a lot. But End of the Century is the ideal version of it.