Review by Beatrice On 23-Jun-2023
Nacho is a veterinarian and works for his father-in-law.
He becomes infatuated with an intern and steals calves to resell them in Portugal and embark on a new adventure.
An uninterrupted series of lies first to the very young lover to drive her away then to his wife who leaves him, to his mother to get 30 thousand euros by manipulating her through guilt, finally to his ex who is a lawyer still hurt after being left by the unfaithful liar, and to his sister-in-law whom he seduces by revealing to her that he has always been in love with her instead of her sister and asking her to hand over 15 thousand euros in damages to her father/father-in-law for not being reported of the theft of the calves.
In short, one trap after another builds and builds the pathological liar Nacho capable of lying and manipulating others in order to get what he wants without worrying about the consequences that now seem unstoppable.
Only one woman will resist the seducer; a professional psychic will confront him with himself and the relentless game of mirrors he has constructed.
"If women were no longer affected by the fake loves of suitors, then there would be men and a world of women so beautiful that they need not become attached to the lie of our dream."
This film seems like the script written taking inspiration from this song by Giorgio Gaber. An intrigue of deaf and blind feelings, a chorus of easily gratified and lonely women, a man even more lonely and in the self-referential and lying trap. A film of vital dialogues and clashes about one's place in the world. Aphasic communication dripping with pathos; a game of inauthentic identities, of gender claims of misunderstood performers of a denied specificity.
A film in which action is to speech as meaning is to silence. Everything is said and unspoken in the refined interplay of the relationship built on gender stereotypes in an exemplary, subtle, inspired way. A film that excellently portrays the perversion of psychological addictions.
An excellent lesson in the lie of our illusions.
23-Jun-2023 by Beatrice