The Untamed, Amat Escalante’s oddball genre film built with space monsters and sexual tension, could have worked just as well as a dysfunctional family drama. The eccentric Mexican director has packed a lot into his fourth feature, an instantly memorable and incredibly unique piece that understands its best possible tension comes from contrasting a heady dose of social-realism with an intense show of spectacular sci-fi terror. While Escalante proves an intelligent and inquisitive mind when weaving through uncomfortable domestic drama, nothing can quite compare to his strange journey through suppressed desire, pleasure-giving tentacles and confected animal orgies (yes, confected animal orgies).
The decision to spark The Untamed with two telling scenes of the horrors to come is an interesting introduction. Before we’re flung into the confronting and pessimistic lives of Ale and Angel, the film gives us two big clues in the form of a meteor gunning for earth and one of a sinister, slimy tentacle bluntly thrusting inside a young woman (Simone Bucio’s catalytic Veronica) while she releases howls of pleasure. These frightening and bluntly presented slices of sci-fi are given no further context, at least not immediately, left to linger in the minds of the viewer.
We’re then introduced to the grounding force of The Untamed, the unpleasant life of Angel (portrayed with callousness and care by the talented Jesús Meza) and Ale, or Alejandra (the equally valuable Ruth Ramos), who are raising two lovely children amidst the most unhappiest of marriages. Angel drips with machismo and is aggressively homophobic, especially towards Ale’s gay brother Fabian (Eden Villavicencio) despite secretly having an affair with him. The tension is explosive, violent and oppressive, treated with earnest direction and an admirable frankness that connects these dynamics to Mexico’s prejudicial social landscape.
The singularly hateful yet complex character of Angel is so strongly shaped by Meza’s standout performance that no further details are necessary in order to encourage an involving sense of sympathy towards Alejandra.
Fabian, who works as a nurse, ends up crossing paths with Veronica following her treatment for a dog bite, not knowing that she’s about to bring an alien creature with a voracious sexual appetite into the picture. Suddenly bleak urban life is invaded with a blunt metaphor of tentacle sex, a preposterous idea that brings a strange –
(understatement of the year) burst of pleasure and, oddly enough, clarity to Ale’s desperately personal world.
Escalante’s ideas are provocative, lapping the edge of erotic cinema without being gratuitous, never sacrificing his dedication to the film’s characters for the tempting shock value of perversion and chaos. The film’s love triangle is always paramount, building a thick layer of emotion around this eye-widening premise. Unfortunately this is also a mark against The Untamed; the refusal to fully explore this beautifully rendered, though vague, metaphor, for all of its transcendental potential, is felt as Escalante sticks to the human aspect, unable to truly traverse the rich thematics of sci-fi.
The few times Escalante embraces the other-worldliness of his fantastical creation (as borrowed from Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 film Possession as it may be) brings about scenes which deserve to catch the audience off-guard. It would be criminal to reveal any spoilers for these absurd yet darkly comical sequences so the less said about them the better.
Review Score: FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Running Time: 98 minutes
The Untamed is screening as part of Sydney Film Festival. For more information and tickets click HERE
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