Director: Amat Escalante
Story: Amat Escalante
Camera: Manuel Alberto Claro
Running time: 100 minutes
Language: Spanish
A single, silent shot of a meteor in space. A naked woman with something long and slimy crawling over her leg. Those are the first two shots of director Amat Escalante’s The Untamed and the best part about them is how they feel totally unrelated to what follows.
What follows feels like a semi-typical, repressed adult drama.
There’s Veronica, the woman with the leg. She meets a doctor named Fabian whose sister, Alejandra, is not happy in her marriage to Angel, a major problem as they have two young boys. Connections between these people develop and, for the bulk of the film, Escalante explores them in a recognizable, but raw, realistic fashion. You almost forget about those first two shots of the movie. But those shots cast a fascinating shadow on the film.
So as you watch this upsetting tale of lies, sex, poverty, homophobia, and violence, there’s always a twinge that makes you remember things are going to eventually take a turn for the weird. Once that happens, The Untamed glues itself to your consciousness. There are a handful of images in the film that you will never forget, seeing them, your mind races with the implications and beauty of what that meteor and crawly thing represent.
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