The Trace of Your Lips [La huella de unos labios] *** (2023, Hugo Catalán, Mauricio Rico) – Classic Movie Review 12,837

‘How intensely does loneliness feed desire? And how much brighter does this fire burn when loneliness becomes isolation?’ Mmm, good questions.

Director Julián Hernández’s eerie, sexually charged 2023 Mexican drama film The Trace of Your Lips [La huella de unos labios] shows life in a pre-pandemic world and existence under an extreme lockdown, as two isolated lonely neighbours are drawn to each other during quarantine.

Hugo Catalán stars as gay B movie actor Román, who crosses paths with young dancer Aldo (Mauricio Rico), both of them living promiscuous lives before lockdown. Then an unnamed pandemic hits and the military authorities enforce an extreme city-wide lockdown. Román is forced to lead a claustrophobic life isolated in his apartment, while Aldo is an essential worker allowed by the authorities to come and go.

They live across from each other in an apartment building, but can’t meet in person. Both men are desperately bored and frustrated. They can only meet online, talk and see each other in videocalls. Well, that’s something, quite a lot actually. Imagine lockdown without Skype! But it is not enough, their desire bursts and finally, they are dangerously tempted to break out of lockdown.

The Trace of Your Lips [La huella de unos labios] is a disturbing film, quite down and depressing. Julian Hernandez sets out to unsettle the audience and does that very successfully. You never really know quite where you are or what you are seeing, if it’s real or imaginary, or what the heck’s going on. It really gets into the lockdown mentality of enforced madness, a world entirely out of your control.

The audience is likely to be as frustrated as the characters, but hopefully not bored. The film is a rallying cry challenge as a metaphor for a free life that might exist without society’s restrictions, and it realises that idea very effectively and finally chillingly. It also explores effectively the hallucinatory, paranoid pandemic state of mind, and links the AIDS crisis era and the film’s 2022 production moment evocatively.

It is certainly provocative, erotic and visceral, just as intended. It is so cleverly done that it would have been nice to have liked it more, be excited by it, but some films just aren’t meant to be like that. It has a horrible end of days feel you want to turn away from. Nevertheless, you can certainly admire it, even quite a lot, as a thoughtful and intelligent response to the nightmare of the pandemic.

Writers: Gustavo Hernández de Anda and Julián Hernández.

Release date: June 17, 2023

Mexico.

81 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,837

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