Undertow
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100 min
Powerful, compelling, beautiful and thoroughly engaging, Undertow deserves all the accolades it has received.
In a remote seaside fishing village on the Peruvian Pacific coast, a visiting painter and a fisherman fall in love. But, like the complex and potentially life-threatening tides along the exquisite coastline, Miguel and Santiago’s affair is anything but predictable. Miguel, apparently content to play host to both lover and heavily pregnant wife, finds his world turned upside down when tragedy strikes and he faces the truth of his feelings. Undertow is first and foremost a classic love story, powerful like few gay love stories manage to be, and one that will restore your faith in romance. That it is also unsparingly powerful, real-to-life and happily un-Hollywood in its construction (there’s a ghost story too) and settlement only adds to its allure. Issues of closetness, masculinity, forgiveness and what it really means to be a man are dealt with in the context of the story, rather than served up on a plate. Undoubtedly a highlight of the Festival.
Directed by
Javier Fuentes-León