Customer Reviews

Quemar Las Naves: Burn The Bridges

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4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Surrounded by strong women and bullies, Sebastian (Angel Onesimo Nevarez) drifts on a cloud of his own. Not that the other characters don't have their dreams: his sister Helena (Irene Azuela) is learning English; his dying mother Eugenia (Claudette Maille) is lost in her days as a singer; schoolmate Juan (Bernardo Benitez) wants to go back home; and rich cousin Ismael (Ramon Valdes) tries to break free from round-the-clock bodyguard protection. But Sebastian's imagination is of a different dimension altogether: Like Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) in "Into the Wild," Sebastian's desire to escape transforms his surroundings and illuminates those that come into contact with him.

Angel Onesimo Nevarez is perfect as the silent, introverted Sebastian; Irene Azuela is stunning as his overcompensating sister. Although most of the other characters remain sketches, the narrative is freshly rendered in the performances of these young actors under the sensitive direction of Francisco Franco.

This film feels a bit like The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version), except that it wanders off in odd directions that seem to not make a lot of sense.

Technically, this is a poorly made film. The handheld shots are wiggly for no reason. The lighting isn't always spot on. The editing is honestly abysmal, there's no descernable pacing, no build up of conflict, completely monotone (each cut is virtually the same length).

Helena is well played by Irene Azuela. Her brother Sebastian is a limp voiceless character.

The film is a family in decay. The once huge music star mother is dying and left her children to more or less fend for themselves. The daughter Helena chooses not to attend school to take care of her mother. Her brother Sebastian attends some very odd school with priests and nuns, but children running all over aimlessly. It's totally mysterious why there's one person that is sort of a body guard. There's bullies at school. There's a form of gangster that appears at weird times. Honestly, none of the characters really made much sense, who they were, why they were there, what they were supposed to do. There just was no motivation and no explanation. It might be a Mexico City thing, or a cultural thing that I just don't understand.

Sebastian experiments with boys, girls, his sister, his "bodyguard". His sister just mopes around being snotty yelling at the maid. She only smiles at the very end of the film.

The structure of this film is very similar to The Dreamers. Both films build slowly, seem somewhat normal at the outset and then spin gradually into their gender and incest exploring territory. The Dreamers does this in a very explicit manner, Burn The Bridges does this with subtlty and suggestion. The large difference between these films, The Dreamers has wonderful pacing with conflict building and resolving. Burn The Bridges just moves along at it's own monotone pace, expecting the viewer to see conflict.

The film is rated PG-13. There is no nudity, a few fight scenes, no violent deaths, and not much strong language. There are many suggestive scenes. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles that can be turned off.

The DVD is not a good transfer at all. There are several jerky scenes where it looks like the 2:3 pulldown was done wrong. There is a single bonus feature, a making of featurette. Since I do not speak spanish, it was impossible to watch or comment on the featurette. It did appear to be not a very good 2 minute film.

It's not a film for younger viewers. It meanders around without getting to a point. I did not care about any of the characters in this film. The mother dies, no big deal. Sebastian runs off, so what? Helena is sad that her mother has died, didn't care. If the point of this film was exploring gender and sensuality, watch The Dreamers.

This SLICE OF LIFE movie was poorly acted, and had no plot or direction. A waste of money, and time to sit and watch it expecting it might eventually pick up. It didn't.