End of the Century (2019)

Film: End of the Century (2019)
Stars: Juan Barberini, Ramon Pujol, Mia Maestro
Director: Lucio Castro
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

While westerns and film noirs are probably my favorite genre of movie, if we go with simply my favorite "type" of film, getting all the way into sub-genres, then there's nothing I love more than a romantic, quick duet between two people where you don't know until the last scene whether they're ending up together.  I'm not talking about a rom-com or a romantic-drama, where you can guess how it'll end pretty much from the trailer (there ain't no way that Sandra Bullock is going to go home alone), but instead films like Before Sunrise, Lost in Translation, Weekend, Call Me By Your Name-films where the movie is essentially about the crescendoes of two people's lives, and how the most mundane of decisions can have profound ramifications on the rest of our existences.  End of the Century is a film that tackles such a subject.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place in a short time period, and yet somehow twenty years apart.  We're in Barcelona where two men keep intersecting on the street, running into each other but just missing a connection.  They're both handsome, forty-ish but in a way where you'd still believe it if they said 28, and are named Ocho (Barberini) and Javi (Pujol).  Eventually Ocho gets Javi to come up to his place, and they have passionate sex...but something about it seems familiar.  In a twist that's so abrupt that you're forgiven for assuming everything after is a dream sequence, we flash back twenty years, to a very different Ocho and Javi.  Ocho, so non-chalant about STD's and casual sex in the age of PREP now is paranoid about catching HIV, to the point where he indulges in relatively low-risk sexual behavior that leads to spiraling WebMD searches (oral sex in the woods is a better recipe for lyme disease than HIV), and Javi is the girlfriend of Ocho's friend Sonia.  One night, while Sonia is away, they get a little drunk, do a little dance, and then have passionate sex, perhaps more pent-up than the opening sequence.

The final third of the movie is going to be where the lovers and haters of this picture sort of reside.  Up until this point, this felt like a gorgeous love story, one where we'll find out that Javi (in an open relationship) eventually ends up with Ocho, perhaps with a flash forward to the future, but instead we head to what appears to be a flash sideways, a look at Javi & Ocho if they'd ended up together, snug in a comfortable marriage (where they have good, if not quite as exhilarating) sex, and raise their daughter.  The film doesn't have much time for expository editing, so you have to assume this isn't real life, though who knows if, in fact, the first chapter was real or not and the ending is happy.

The film does play its hands toward the end, indicating it is in fact a dream when we return to the first chapter's present, and understand that here Javi leaves Ocho, acknowledging that this might be too intimate for the parameters he & his husband have about sex with other men, and goes off into the night, with Ocho changed but lonely, wondering if he's just let the love of his life go for the second time.  The film ends with a similar melancholy to a number of the films I listed above-with most likely this being a warm memory for these men to cling to, but maybe (just maybe) it's the middle of a story.

I loved End of the Century for this exact reason-honestly, it's rare to find such an intimate romantic drama contain elements of mystery and magic.  The leads, particularly Barberini, are superb-sexy, with the lived-in appeal of characters who had lives before the camera went going, and you know continue after it's gone.  The writing is solid, even if the entire sequence with Sonia felt a bit unnecessary (it would have been better if there had just been these two guys the whole film, in my opinion).  The dancing scene, somehow capturing the indulgence of youth (where stakes are high, but you can't tell it at the time), is breathtaking.  End of the Century moves briskly, steadily to its inevitable conclusion, where we cannot have our fantasy even if it feels just in reach, and instead we are treated to an experience, a memory, which can be just as valuable.