Am I Missing Something?

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This film was, at first sight, a turn off. The protagonist at first seems like a self indulgent loser. The camera remained still and the action, such as it was, took place entirely in a tiny dark apartment. The girl never leaves home except off camera. But viewed as a tragedy this makes sense. The action moving only by visitors, the single setting and the simple themes all add up to create a classic world of claustrophobia and sadness. The sex is honestly portrayed as empty. Unlike Hollywood moves which tend to glamorize sordid situations, in this film the sex scenes are depressing rather than titillating. As the story plods along we begin to realize that the girl's apparent victim relationship with a sadist has an underlying motive. She needs him to help her reach a goal. ( shades of "a Taste of Cherries") Her conversations with her sexual partners are limited. She seems totally uninterested in her lovers and we could judge her as selfish until we see how she cares about her brother and how she lives vicariously through her neighbours. Despite themes of self destruction, abuse, lying, empty sex and loneliness, the film eventually includes a ray of optimism or art least a possibility of another life. I did understand why some reviewers were put off but I appreciated it rather then enjoyed it.

The problem with this movie isn't the content or the nature of the story. Yes, it wallows in brutal and degrading sex. Yes, it excuses violence against women. Yes, it has a bleak outlook on life. But I can handle those.The real issue is that the film is just plain bad. The writing is turgid, the directing uninspired, and the acting amateurish. The first 45 minutes could have been told in 15--or even 10--by a competent filmmaker. When it finally got to the real nastiness, I fast-forwarded past it. As I said, I can handle it, but why degrade myself when there's no point? In fact, since my DVD player still showed me the subtitles when running at double speed, I had no trouble following the tissue-thin plot. That's right: this movie is paced at less than half the rate the viewer could absorb.In the end, the filmmakers only have one thing to tell us, and it's not at all profound. Actually, I take that back: despite all the raves from other reviewers, I don't think the film has anything at all to say. It's just one more "Look at me, I'm an 'artiste' and isn't it cool how I can shock you?" movie.I recommend that you watch an Adam Sandler movie instead of this one. Sandler's films are also awful, but at least they have a point.

A bleak study of loneliness set in a claustrophobic apartment in Mexico City featuring a fearless performance, or a masochistic one, take your pick, by Monica Del Carmen as Laura. Laura spends most of her days and nights in her joyless apartment spying on her neighbors and inventing relationships with them in her mind. She occasionally goes out to clubs and brings home men for unrewarding sex. They invariably leave her lonelier than before. She meets Arturo (Armando Hernandez) who brings a sado-masochistic satisfaction to her sexual life. Meanwhile she ominously checks off the dates of her calendar toward the end of the month marked in red. This film is as explicit as it needs to be and Laura's world is not easy to view. Director Michael Rowe has achieved the film he sat out to make, I'm sure, and the totality of the realism can be uncomfortable as it should be. By setting the movie entirely in the small apartment and by the astonishingly natural performance of Ms. Del Carmen, you feel, smell, and know this movie like it was a fever dream. You want to give Laura a big hug at the end. Not for the squeamish or near squeamish.

Laura is a normal woman, living in a normal apartment, has a normal job, is normal looking but is abnormally depressed.It's never verbalized but her obsession with the day her father died combined with when she tells Arturo when she lost her virginity (12 years old) and then how she says "it's none of your business" when he asks her who with - is a dead giveaway, to me at least, that it was at her father's hands. The long silences between her answers and the questions give it away too.This is the heart of the movie - her painfully normal life combined with her painfully abnormal obsession with submissive sex and her father's death, as well as his highly probable molestation of her. All of that dictates her ultimate goal; to die on February 29th., the same day her father died. She plans on manipulating Arturo's weakness for dominance and BDSM, thus having him do the deed for her. Probably because suicide is a sin for Catholics. All the little but strategically placed details like a picture of Mary, Laura praying etc. - all of that makes this movie that much more interesting. It may not be high budget but it addresses so many things about humanity in general; loneliness, abuse, the normalcy of everyday life, religion, pain, love.... it's just the whole rainbow of humanity in one, low profile and modest movie from Mexico.The acting is raw and oh so real - if I ever saw an actress that deserves more attention than she is getting it's Monica del Carmen. Awesome job Monica! Hollywood! You can learn a lot from this one - and that's saying a lot coming from someone who usually ONLY watches Hollywood-made movies.p.s. this may look like a porn movie to those who take everything at face value but it really isn't. A face-value-black-and-white outlook on life usually just means lack of maturity and lack of life experience. Nothing wrong with that - but this movie definitely isn't for people like that.