This movie was all over the board. It started off as a film about a guy reconnecting with his childhood crush, then became a story about a tranny plotting revenge against the priest who abused him, then transformed into a murder mystery. Half the movie, the viewer thinks certain scenes are flashbacks (or a filmmaker character's interpretation of flashbacks), but then halfway through realizes they're actually scenes in the filmmaker's movie.But I love confusing stuff like that, where reality and fiction blur. The whole plot was a movie within a movie, with all the accompanying drama.
It was brilliant.
Before I watched it myself, I'd heard there were some disturbing scenes. There weren't, really, unless I've just been desensitized. I also assumed it would be more a movie about the traumatic lives of kids assaulted by Catholic priests. But it wasn't at all. It wasn't a statement about loss of faith, nor was it a blatant indictment of pious hypocrisy. That all played a part of the overall story, but in the end it was only a part.
The theme of performances ran throughout -- the choirboys, solo singing, the filmmaker, the drag theatre. With all of these performances came costumes -- the priest's vestments, the altarboy's robes, the drag. For a while, it was hard to tell what was a performance and what wasn't. I've always been obsessed with masks and constructions of reality, so I found it all captivating and fascinating.
On another note, I can understand Spain-Spanish easier than other dialects. The hot lead actor, who is Mexican, did a really good job of faking a Spanish accent, because I could understand him more without reading the subtitles. I couldn't in some of his other movies.
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