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After working for television (since 1995),
Daniel Sanchez Arevalo debuted with
Azul Oscuro Casi Negro/ Dark Blue Almost Black (2006), a
sex comedy of sorts, in which people can't escape a complex network of frustrations.
They are prisoners outside the prison as much as in the prison.
At the end they all grow up into different people but their situation remains
the same, still trapped by their destinies.
A kid sets fire to a garbage can and runs away. His father chases him.
The kid, Jorge, tells him that he doesn't want to continue in his humiliating job: portman and janitor of the building.
The father is disappointed and has a stroke.
Jorge now has to stick to his low-paid job as a portman and on top of it he has to take care of his father, who cannot be trusted anymore (apparently, there is no mother).
Seven years go by.
He is still hoping to get a better job, has studied business management, and sends around his resume, but nobody wants to hire him.
He receives a postcard from his friend Natalia.
Meanwhile, in a prison a young woman, Paula, joins a theater laboratory.
Another convict, Antonio Mateo, hits on her and they kiss, but later in her cell
she is beaten and raped by other female prisoners.
Later she has sex in the theater with Antonio and tells him that she wants to
get pregnant. It's her plan to get out of the common cell and avoid more violence.
Back home from a failed job interview, Jorge meets a friend, Israel, who spends his
spare time on the roof of their tenement spying on a neighbor with binoculars. The neighbor is a male masseuse
who also performs oral sex on his perverted customers. Israel wants to
take pictures to punish the perverted married customers.
Jorge takes the bus to the prison and visits Antonio: Antonio is his older brother.
Antonio asks Jorge to buy chemicals that are supposed to increase the chances of getting Paula pregnant.
Natalia, a
childhood girlfriend and sweetheart, surprises Jorge showing up unannounced:
she has completed her studies in Germany.
They still have feelings for each other.
Jorge delivers the drug to Antonio who overdoses and ends up at the hospital.
Antonio wants Jorge to succeed in life. Jorge is his big hope.
Natalia too is proud of Jorge, who studied while he was working and got
a diploma.
At the hospital Antonio finds out that he cannot have children.
Antonio and Paula ask Jorge to get Paula pregnant.
Jorge refuses.
Meanwhile Israel has a whole collection of pictures of the pervert who
visits the masseuse: his own father with whom he has a conflictual relationship.
Jorge tells Israel of his brother's plan, and
Israel shows Jorge the photos of his father with the masseuse.
Jorge keeps being rejected at job interviews.
Natalia instead finds a job in a medical laboratory, while Jorge
picks up the garbage of the building, feeds and washes his father.
Natalia tells Jorge that she has had sex with others. Jorge hasn't.
Jorge returns to the prison. Paula tells him her story: she was seduced
by a drug dealer in South America who then sent her back to Spain with
a briefcase full of drugs when she got pregnant, assuming that the customs
officers would not search a pregnant woman. But they did and she ended up in
prison, where she also lost the child.
Now Jorge is willing to have sex with her.
Meanwhile, Israel blackmails his own father and pretends that the money comes from a new job. Israel also visits the masseuse himself but after the massage refuses the oral sex.
Antonio is released from jail but with a bracelet that always broadcasts his
location. Antonio now is jealous that Jorge had sex with Paula.
At home Antonio, who was not in good terms with their father, helps Jorge take
care of him.
Jorge has sex again with Paula.
Jorge, Antonio and Israel attend Natalia's birthday party.
Natalia tells Jorge that there might be an opening in her company's human resources department.
Israel sleeps with a friend of Natalia's and proudly announces that he is not gay (unlike his father).
Jorge and Natalia finally sleep together.
They remember when Jorge's mom was dressing Jorge with the clothes donated to
the church by the other families: Jorge's family was always poor.
Natalia doesn't know that Jorge is also having sex with Paula,
and Jorge is remorseful.
Paula explains to Jorge that she once slept with another man, who happened to be
the man of another female convict, and that's the convict who now hates her and beats her up.
Israel visits Roberto the masseuse again and this time he gets into sex.
Jorge interviews at Natalia's company but the job is for night guard.
Jorge is humiliated. He throws away all the pictures of Natalia and then
insults her. She has always been favored by life, the daughter of a richer family, a student in Germany, and now hired by a major company.
But she tells him that she too has a humble job in the company,
a three-month temp contract.
Out of the blue Israel's father punches him, thinking that Jorge is the
blackmailer.
Israel admits that he is attracted to Roberto and is jealous of his own father.
Jorge keeps seeing Paula who confesses that she got pregnant the first time
they slept together.
Antonio is plotting to get access to his father's bank account because
he discovered that his father was paid for their mother's life insurance
and that amount is now a huge sum. Jorge had no idea and is hurt that Antonio
never told him about that money. Antonio knew that their father would not
have left him any money and now that their father cannot reason anymore he has his chance to get half of it, the money he needs to start a new life with Paula.
Israel tells his father who the real blackmailer is: his father is shocked,
denies being gay but but refuses to explain why he has sex with roberto.
One evening over dinner Israel speaks openly of his father's gay life but
his mother tells him to shut up. She already knew about it and accepted it.
Jorge tells Antonio that Paula is pregnant.
Antonio visits Paula in jail: Paula tells Antonio she she fell in love with
Jorge at the same time that Jorge tells Natalia that he's in love with Paula.
Jorge is happy that finally someone needs him.
Paula wants to finish her studies and become a social worker.
Antonio is mad at his brother Jorge for stealing his woman (and his dream).
Venting his frustration, Jorge throws garbage cans at the window of a fashion shop where he always admired a business suit.
Israel is driving by and stops. They drive his car into the shop's window
and Jorge steals the suit.
Antonio decides to keep all the money, but his father suddenly understands
what is going on and stabs him with the scissors he used to cut up the signature
card of the bank account.
Israel makes a deal with his father that they will see the massause on different days.
Paula has baby. Jorge moves to another building,
still working as a portman and janitor, and still applying for jobs .
Antonio, who has not been able to get the money, is pushing his father's wheelchair.
He also wrote the libretto for Miquel Fernandez's musical
40 El Musical (2009)
and scripted Oskar Santos'
El Mal Ajeno (2010).
Gordos/ Fat People (2011)
Primos/ Cousinhood (2011)
La Gran Familia Espanola/ Family United (2012)
Diecisiete/ Seventeen (2019)
Arevalo also wrote the novels
"La Maleta de Ignacio Karaoke" (1998),
"31 de Junio de 1993" (2007) and
"La Isla de Alice" (2015).
(Copyright © 2020 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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