Lust Without Borders - DVD

Film: The 25-year-old Laura (Monica del Carmen) lives in a small apartment in Mexico City, from which she works as a freelance journalist. The order situation is currently rather weak, which is why boredom and loneliness determine the everyday life of Laura. Even insignificant one-night stands can't free the young woman from her sadness. But then she meets Arturo (Gustavo Sánchez Parra), with whom she begins a passionate affair. The sex becomes more intense with each meeting and Laura keeps testing her limits. The fact that the relationship doesn't seem to have a long life dissolves all Arturo's inhibitions. His sex games become more and more extreme and pleasure and pain mix more and more. For Laura, these moments are the perfect escape, an escape from a life that is heading for a fateful day she has marked on her calendar...

With his feature debut Lust Without Limits, filmmaker Michael Rowe has directed a chamber drama that is intense precisely because of its actually very quiet narrative. Since the film takes place almost exclusively in Laura's small apartment and there are many scenes in which superficially not much really happens, the story lives primarily on the strong play of the leading actress. Monica del Carmen makes the audience feel Laura's loneliness and quiet desperation in almost every moment. When she lies on the phone to her family or colleagues about how well she's doing, that things are going great professionally and that she's made friends with a neighboring couple in the house, when in reality she's all alone and has just lost an important client, one look at the woman's face is enough to empathize with her inner emptiness.

Her performance is extremely brave, especially in the increasingly drastic sex scenes, as del Carmen doesn't necessarily conform to a common ideal of beauty and she has to endure some inherently humiliating things. But del Carmen's acting and Rowe's almost matter-of-fact staging make it clear that Laura, at least sexually, doesn't see herself as a victim and she really comes alive in these moments with Arturo. Still, the sex scenes are sad rather than erotic, underlying Laura's dull interior rather than true passion.

The film gets a small moment of suspense from the fact that Laura meticulously crosses out each day on her calendar, approaching a mysterious date that she has clearly marked. For Arturo, this simply means that his affair with Laura will soon come to an end, and that he will live out all his sexual desires in the time they have left. And the viewer, over time, begins to suspect what this Day X is all about. Of course, the ending should not be given away at this point. However, the resolution of the mystery proves to be somewhat disappointing. Although Rowe does lead his story to a clear ending, the tense expectations of the audience ultimately fizzle out into nothingness. On the one hand, it's commendable that Rowe didn't go for the obvious outcome, but the film clearly loses intensity because of the ending he chose.

Nevertheless, Lust Without Borders has become, on balance, a very well-acted, intense chamber drama that strikes a good balance between intimate drama and erotic film, and can thereby be thoroughly recommended to lovers of Latin American arthouse cinema who don't mind fairly explicit sex scenes. Worth seeing!

Image + Sound: The DVD's image captures the somewhat gloomy, desolate atmosphere of Laura's apartment very well. The image is largely clean, the colour scheme is consistent and the overall sharpness is of a good standard. However, slight image noise can be spotted in the numerous darker scenes, which also affects the sharpness of detail, which occasionally shows minor weaknesses. Overall, the sound is very restrained, dominated by long moments of complete silence, dialogue and discreet ambient noise. Since this also helps the atmosphere of the story, overall it gets a: Good!

Extras: As a bonus, the DVD has a short, quite interesting making of, a music video and the trailer for the film to offer. Not much, but okay in terms of quality!

Conclusion: Lust Without Borders is a gritty chamber drama that manages to build intensity with its quietly staged mix of very intimate drama and sex, culminating in a somewhat disappointing finale. However, Monica del Carmen's at times gutsy performance, which really makes the viewer feel Laura's loneliness and her desperate longing to feel something that will make her happy, makes the film well worth watching despite minor lengths and the somewhat disappointing ending. If you appreciate Mexican arthouse cinema and aren't afraid of more explicit sex scenes, you can safely take a look here

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp