Okay, this might not be the best of all Latin American movies, and it certainly doesn't have the most plausible of all plots (much has been said about it already). But, let's be honest about this: I appreciate every opportunity to see the acting of Cecilia Roth and Gael Garcia Bernal, and here they are both brilliant. Gael, especially, as the boy-man who falls in love with the mysterious woman behind the wall, delivers a heartbreakingly vulnerable performance. To see him break down in the end when Carmen's secret is revealed, made me suffer with him. Cecilia, too, is pure gold, and her scenes together with Gael crackle with erotic tension. Carmen, who is unable to lead normal sexual relationships after the trauma of imprisonment and torture under the Argentinian dictatorship, needs other people to audibly perform sexual acts to get some satisfaction herself. She likes to listen to hired couples from an adjacent room but usually remains invisible herself. The first thing that strikes her about young Gustavo is his voice on an answer machine. Since the owner of said answer machine is a friend who runs a model agency and provides her with "performers", she chooses Gustavo to be her next visitor. First she listens to him having sex with a girl, then she wants him to come alone and read dirty novels to her. Their mutual interest grows and, eventually, the middleaged woman and the 22 year old man fall in love with each other. However, their happiness is doomed. Something they don't know about each other (or does Carmen know?) is bound to surface, and a tragedy of Greek dimensions unfolds when it does. I'm quite certain that, in the future, only hard core Gael and Cecilia fans will bother to check out this dimly lit curiosity. Count myself one of them. The DVD (Spanish with English subtitles) is not one to stumble across in your usual video store. All the more, I'm glad to own it now, and I'll certainly watch it again. To see (and hear!) Gael Garcia Bernal lie on a bed, reading erotic fiction to his invisible client, was worth the money alone
Review of Privates Lives
