From Afar

By: Amos Lassen

Armando, a 50-year-old gay man who looks for young men in Caracas and pays them just for company. One day he meets Elder, a -year-old boy who is the leader of a criminal gang, and that meeting changes their lives forever. The film is the debut feature of Venezuelan Lorenzo Vigas and is about an unlikely May-December romance that is handled with grace, subtlety and tension. We see a smart examination of the slow-blossoming relationship between a middle-aged loner and a young street hood that also goes into the characters' respective father complexes. to moving, equivocal effect. As Armando, Alfredo Castro gives an incredible performance that is filled with anguish.

From the very beginning, we are aware of the alienated perspective of Armando who is a well-off dentist living in Caracas and who is still haunted by childhood trauma that has prevented him forming and maintaining relationships as an adult. His sexual encounters are one-sided with no reciprocation and they come from young working-class men from the street that he pays to undress while he masturbates. This is quite risky behavior in a place where homosexuality is not accepted and when his latest pick-up, Elder (Luis Silva) beat him up, we get the idea that this is not the first time something like this has happened to Armando. However, some days later, when Armando and Elder run into each other on the street, we see that Elder is somewhat interested in Armando.
The two men chart their subtly growing attraction with delicate push-pull modulations and at one point, it's Elder who appears the more aggressive seducer even while he keeps his façade of a straight guy. The two share a kiss in a public bathroom but it is quite frenzied and almost animalistic but a sex scene that follows is tender. We get the perception that there is something of an ambiguous romantic relationship and Armando realizes that he is a father figure for Elder but he is quite reluctant to take that on.

It is the viewers who will find ways to understand what is happening especially once Armando's father suddenly returns home after a long absence away. The very idea that his father is around becomes a concern for Armando and his sister as well because there had been no happiness in the family. We can only wonder if the way Armando embraces Elder comes from his own instinctive thoughts about protecting his younger self. This is what I love about movies like this-we care and we identify. Neither Armando nor Elder feel the need to explain themselves to each other. Quite naturally there are misinterpretation and these play into the way the film ends.
Armando's has had a lifelong accumulation of hurt, disappointment and self-preserving reticence and we see some of this in the way he carries himself, walking with a long loping gait and his straight stance. He's a wonderfully gentle and generous man and we also see that as an actor, he helps the young man playing Elder. In Elder we see disarming vulnerability that conveys his tricky interior sense of a character repeatedly surprising himself.

The director's voice here is distinctive and we see that in his creation of Armando whose behavior on the streets in poor neighborhoods of Caracas could is actually more watching than cruising. He trains his calm gaze on tough young men and he acts decisively when he sees an attractive candidate, without bothering to find out whether the youth might welcome his advances. In the opening scenes Armando approaches a young guy (Jeralt Jimenez) at a bus stop, making his physical presence felt as he follows him onto the bus and then flashes a wad of cash to lure him home. The sex is a terse exchange with zero physical contact.
We learn that Armando makes dentures for a living in a small workshop and when his sister lets him know that their father is back, we can guess from his facial expressions how he and his father got along. When Armando first approaches the surly Elder (Silva) for sex, he gets a hostile response and an earful of anti-gay abuse. Elder eventually follows him home, only to assault and rob him. Undeterred by his injuries or losses, Armando starts stalking Elder on the street, even finding out where he lives in a grungy low-income housing project. The initial danger of their sex-free encounters shifts into more unsettling and increasingly obscure territory.

After Elder is severely beaten by fellow thugs, Armando takes him into his home to care for him. Each move for mutual feeling is quickly followed by another reason for the older man to regret his kindness and this prompts Armando to harm himself in a symbolic display of his superior strength. Having crossed the line, Elder finds himself shut out and having to earn back Armando's trust.

What makes this film so mesmerizing and so fascinating is the way that Elder starts opening up while the older man remains secretive. We get a nuanced portrait rough kid who has never known what it is to be cared for a and we see how those unfamiliar sensations can nourish fluidity of affection, desire and sexuality. "From Afar" does not go into psychological analysis of either of its principal characters, and yet there's layer upon layer of complexity to them both. Armando is imbued the character with an almost unnerving stillness and a watchfulness that is \ full of hurt and anger that goes way back and likely renders him beyond repair. Elder is equally compelling- he is edgy and impulsive, revealing a well-hidden vulnerability only gradually as he starts seeking Armando's approval. The way he sheds his inhibitions and relaxes into an unfamiliar sense of security makes what follows in the film's conclusion quite shattering.
Elder's mother (Jerico Montilla) is sharp enough to see there's something unspoken going on when her son brings the older man as a friend to a birthday party, but she's too much a product of a homophobic society to be accepting. The same goes for the cold-shouldering of Elder by his street friends. However, this is neither a coming-out film nor a commentary on anti-gay discrimination. Rather, it is a study of one particular relationship with its own indefinable, constantly changing rules. This is a story ofquiet desperation and alienation set in present day Venezuela.