[Last movie of the Viennale!]

Gasolina is the first movie by Julio Hernandez Cordón, starring Gabriel Armas, Carlos Dardon and Francisco Jacome.

Plot:
Gerardo (Carlos Dardon), Raymundo (Gabriel Armas) and Nano (Francisco Jacome) are three teenagers in Guatemala, always looking for money or gas for their car. One night they decide to go for a joyride, a kind of escape from reality. But running from reality never really ends well.

I thought the topic of the movie was really interesting – how often do you hear about youth in Guatemala outside of, well, Guatemala? But ultimately, it left me cold and it feels like something I was going to forget right away (and I have to admit that I did).

Cordón is a talented film maker but not so talented a writer. The movie kind of bumbles along but never manages to get some emotions across. Therefore, it feels really long although it has only a 70 minute run time.

But what I really didn’t like about it was that it just showed racism and then left it completely unchallenged: [SPOILER] the boys hit an old indio during their joyride. Instead of facing the authorities, they pour gas on him and burn him. [/SPOILER] While one of them shows some initial hesitation, for the other two it’s seems perfectly natural. And none of them show any kind of remorse.
People, that’s not the way to deal with this. Maybe remorse isn’t actually necessary but there should be some comment somewhere that this kind of thing just plain isn’t right.

[There’s also something about a mentally handicapped (I think) boy in the beginning. But my memory’s too hazy to actually remember what happened, so I’m not going to say anything about it. Just note that I remember feeling very ill at ease during the scene. Because that I remember.]

The actors were okay, but there’s not one among them that struck me as specially talented.

I liked how the movie was shot, though it did have the problem that basically the entire film takes place at night. Not that it didn’t make most of it.

Summarising: a watchable movie but ultimately, the issues outweigh the good stuff. Maybe a later work by the director will be more recommendable.