FREE DRAMA!!

The character-based, Mexican feature, Blue Eyelids (Párpados azules), is one of those films that might easily slip past and go unnoticed by the cinema-going public; its eccentricities and unusual storytelling style do not mark it as a film that would garner much attention. To make matters worse, it all but eschews the conventional grammar associated with dramatic screen storytelling, except for the curious quality it has of rather masterfully creating - in a black, satiric sort of way - the two elements without which no dramatic narrative can succeed - namely, MYSTERY and SUSPENSE.

The story concerns the relationship of two lonely hearts, Marina and Victor. Marina, played by Cecilia Suarez, is a meek wallflower who eeks out a desultory living working in a uniform company in Mexico City. When she unexpectedly discovers she has won an employee raffle for a beach holiday for two, her first inclination is to go on her own, but in a change of heart decides to ring up old school friends to find someone who might want to accompanying her. Her pathetic attempts to find a travelling companion culminate in a meeting with Victor (played by Enrique Arreola), for whom she is only a vague memory. Though the two were at school together, they were anything but close, and when Marina asks him to accompany her on a beach holiday he is genuinely uncertain about her intentions and the wisdom of going on a trip with someone he hardly knows. He neverthesless agrees to go, but suggests they spend some time together beforehand to get to know one anohter better. From this point on, the true dimensions of both of their hang-ups and unspoken frustrations become simultaneously clearer and more mysterious.

When the couple sets out on their first date to a traditional dance club, they manage not only to lose their table, but also sour the whole evening with superficial conversation and an undercurrent of unspoken desiring makes that makes dancing rather irrelevant. They eventually end up back at his place where they indulge in what passes for a sexual act, but without any of the conventional passion or lust one might expect.

Because they aren't unlikeable, and because their loneliness is obvious, we - the audience - care about them. We want them to have more in life than what either has chosen for themselves. But all the time we are haunted, even perplexed, by the circumstances into which they have wandered, and their seeming inability to break ot of the emotional and psychological cages they have constructed for themselves.

The fuel that keeps the energy of this story burning is the mystery and suspense their predicament creates. The mystery revolves around the question as to why Marina is unable to consummate her desires. What made her like is? What is she avoiding or trying to forget? The suspense, on the other hand, is supplied by the question concerning whether or not she will change, whether or not they will have a breakthrough.

Unfortunately the ending doesn't quite answer either question and yet the over-all film is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. It may, indeed, be one of the rare examples of those handful of films that simply and compellingly present an honest, unromanticised account of human attachments and relationships, and the power of karma to effect the most unlikely and unexpected sorts of connections.

What Blue Eyelids does is present a very fresh take on the old Boy-meets-Girl story formula, and a sobering glimpse into the imaginative dimensions and confounding impossibility of needful love.

Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-7rvzcuIUg