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This impassioned, insightful drama from Spain tells an emotional story in which love and hate, friendship, life and death are all weighed in generous proportions.
Jaume Clara, a brilliant and accomplished professor of medieval literature, should be enjoying the fruits of a life of hard work and achievement, but he is beset with failing health and distraught over a passionate fixation on his beautiful, intelligent but withdrawn student, David. When a response to an anonymous call-boy's ad unexpectedly brings David to his door, Jaume foregoes the tempting opportunity for easy sex with his student and instead hatches an elaborate and dangerous plot to manifest his deep love, one which risks his career, his friendship with a beloved colleague, and the possibility of cruelty and violence at the hands of heartless David. The two men's mismatched passions and their well-matched intellects make for a feverish war of wills, one from which neither one will survive unharmed.
An official selection of the Berlin International Film Festival, this taut, high-stakes drama is brought vividly to life by an outstanding cast and a sure directorial hand that perfectly modulates the story's twin elements of introspection and shock. |
