Undertow is a love story set in a traditional Peruvian fishing village. Miguel (Cristian Mercado), a fisherman is married to Mariela (Tatiana Astengo), who is pregnant with his son. Santiago (Manolo Cardona) is a painter living in a small house on the edge of the ocean, and he’s Miguel’s lover. Miguel tries to keep their relationship a secret, and Santiago is respectful – up to a point.
When Santiago suddenly shows up inside Miguel’s house – seemingly unnoticed by Mariela – Miguel discovers that Santiago is in fact dead. The body is crushed between a few rocks somewhere out in the sea, and Santiago cannot be at rest. Miguel is the only one who can see or hear the painter – and only he can touch his dead lover, as well.
Complications ensue – as they must – when nude paintings of Miguel are discovered in Santiago’s house. Now Miguel must deal with gossip and rumors in a tiny, close-knit community, all coming to a head when his son is born. Santiago is summoned whenever Miguel calls for him, or even thinks of him. Now Miguel can have it both ways – his dead lover in a cave on the beach and his wife and kid in a house in town.
Undertow is a subtle, well-crafted story, dealing with this kind of forbidden love triangle in a novel way. An American film similar to Undertow is Todd Haynes’s great Far From Heaven, which is about homosexuality in a repressive time and place – Fifties suburbia. Undertown treats its central relationship with respect and candor – Santiago never makes any apologies for how he feels toward Miguel. Their love for each other – incredibly complicated though it may be – is a fact they needed to deal with while Santiago was alive. Miguel seems to feel entitled to have it both ways, which is an unrealistic and naïve thought – but people are unrealistic and naïve, so it feels real.
The film is oddly lifeless, though (no pun intended), carried mostly by the charismatic leads – Cardona in particular commands attention when he’s on the screen, resembling a Latino Jason Patric. Undertow begins to feel a little too sedate as it drifts into an overlong third act. An American film would likely erupt in dramatic fireworks and possibly violence, and writer-director Javier Fuentes-León admirably keeps things grounded toward the end. And then it stops. We’ve seen Miguel deal with the situation in perhaps the only logical way, the one other subplot (Mariela’s discovery of the gossip and her reaction) is dealt with, and by the end of the film the characters are likely to just get on with their lives. I did not come away from Undertow with any memorable moments or scenes, only the nice cinematography, the well-placed shots, the well-acted and-directed lead actors. It’s a nice film. And that’s it.
6 out of 10
Undertow opens in limited release on September 17th.