SIFF Review of Gordos: Plus-size Eroticism Made Slightly Horrific

June 4, 2010 at 11:13 AM | Kirk Michael

A White Tank Top Movie Review

One obese character sums up the strange propulsion of this black comedy succinctly: "I love being fat and naked."

Here's a snapshot of the principal characters: Enrique is a failed, bisexual pitchman for weight-loss pills with a nice potbelly and uncontrollable rages. Andrés is a large crime scene investigator with an equally large wife, Beatriz, a large and depressed daughter, Nuria, and a suspiciously skinny son Luis. Leonor is a successful Web site developer who insists she just needs to lose 20 kilos to win back her boyfriend. Sofi has lunatic blue eyes and is not really overweight at all but feels compelled to slim down to impress her terrible, uber-Christian boyfriend Alex. And Paula is a lovely P.E. teacher who is rail thin despite being pregnant. Her husband is the suave Abel, the therapist who brings all the gordos together in revealing group sessions.

Director Daniel Sánchez Arévalo balances the screen time evenly between each person, mixing them together in dizzying permutations. If you thought the pounds DeNiro gained for Raging Bull were impressive, you'll be blown away by the cast of Gordos.  Enrique and Sofi in particular have wildly fluctuating weights, driven by different combinations of guilt, bulimia and religious fervor.

Arévalo’s unapologetic presentation of compulsive overeating is impressive. Chips are stuffed into mouths, cake is gulped by the handful, whole pizzas are consumed while reclining on exercise equipment and one regurgitated wedding ring is licked clean of its food particles (and vomit). Much of this happens in close up.

Read the rest of the review after the jump.

The director is likewise unafraid of plus-size eroticism that I can’t imagine seeing in any mainstream American film. Andrés and Beatriz have loud, sweaty sex (with their "junk" helpfully hidden under rolls of flesh) and their children post videos of it on the internet — we see a clip played repeatedly as the amused couple racks up YouTube views. 

I found the consistently light tone that Arévalo maintains somewhat inscrutable. In one moment Enrique will tell a tender, hilarious story of his first love with an Austrian Special Olympian; then he will brutally assault an ex-lover on the street. Is his violence supposed to be a funny side effect of his mood-altering KiloAway pills? 

When narcissistic Abel leaves his pregnant wife because her breasts have gotten too big (really?), I can only assume we’re to laugh at the monstrous irony. But the direction is ambivalent.

It’s tough to puzzle over any plot points for too long — we’re never more than a few quick cuts away from more nudity, yummy snacks or nefarious behavior. And the director resists any predictable closure for his characters.

I can only imagine that they’re still eating and screwing, trying to live.

 

Gordos has one more screening at SIFF
Monday June 7, 9:20pm at the Uptown

 

Comments

June 4, 2010 at 12:38 PM | Emily B

I have to say, I think you may have missed the bigger picture on this one.

I didn't find the film to really be about body weight, itself, or being fat. OR plus-size eroticism. Rather, it seemed to me that Arévalo cleverly used each character's relationship with their weight as an eloquent — sometimes funny, sometimes achingly sad — visual metaphor for the familiar themes of control, forgiveness, coming-of-age, and love that we see throughout the film.

Fatness was the thread that tied all the characters together from their separate lives (that and the occasional group therapy sessions), in a way that I found fluid and well-paced (as opposed to "in dizzying permutations").

Additionally, I think it's  a little off-base to refer to the sex scenes in the film as "eroticism." As you point out, these are scenes that you wouldn't typically find in mainstream American film, but this was made in Spain. Characterizing the sex in this film as erotic implies that it was disturbing or violent, or even gratuitous. I think they were just showing sex. It was part of the plot-line. Maybe it disturbed you because you're not used to seeing fat people have sex or a woman wearing a strap-on, but I don't think it was included for shock-value or to be "slightly horrific." It was just part of the story.

I ALSO think this is misleading:

"Arévalo’s unapologetic presentation of compulsive overeating is impressive. Chips are stuffed into mouths, cake is gulped by the handful, whole pizzas are consumed while reclining on exercise equipment and one regurgitated wedding ring is licked clean of its food particles (and vomit). Much of this happens in close up."

The food consumption in the film was not graphic or, I think, intended to illicit a gross-out factor (with the exception of the wedding ring scene). Again, I feel like people reading this will expect a fatty-fest film full of displays of gluttony and gratuitous sex, which is way off-base from what I saw.

In sum, I really enjoyed Gordos. I thought it had a great ensemble cast that told poignant, real stories in a fresh way. I hope people will go see it at the next screening!

June 6, 2010 at 5:12 AM | Visitor
Emily:  Have you checked 'eroticism' in the dictionary?  Or cruised the Kam Sutra?  Disturbing?  Violent?  Gratuitous?  Pretty sure it's all in the eye of the beholder, and truly curious about what YOU eroticize. . .