Armond Whe on Mexi's 4 Moons & the Bt Gay Movi of 2014

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The lk to the four tal are all about love and acceptance and are all about gay say anymore ns the risk of revealg the plot(s). Wh those stori, Serg Tovar Velar’s “4 Moons” (“Cuatro Lunas”) pats a spired and sensive portra of gay boys and men 21st-century Mexi.

Strikgly photographed by Yannick Nol, wh ocsnal full-ontal male nudy, graphic sexual enunters and rooms full of bare buttocks (a sex club scene), this quiet romantic drama never soars but keeps s sense of humor and s balance while takg s subject matter for granted the bt possible Echánove is particularly sympathetic as the beard man, who turns out to be a noted poet — the kd to whom lleg dite special days — wh a lovg wife, grown dghters and ltle ’s unrealistic to have a supposedly straight young man (Gtavo Egelhaaf) realize that he’s gay and ve his new boyiend over to meet his parents, to whom he’s jt e out, a sgle scene, but ’s a nice film’s tone flirts wh smugns, though never cross the le. At the end, the boy (Gabriel Santoyo) who vised the prit shows off his culary talents to his parents, toppg every entree wh a sgle, perfect strawberry, and his narrow-md father stggl to embrace the revelatn that his only son is gay. Four stanc of gay sire and self-acceptance (or the lack thereof) are nvcgly dramatized Mexin wrer-director Serg Tovar Velar’s Four Moons (Cuatro Lunas), wh the protagonists rangg age om preteen to retiree.

The former’s secret csh on the latter and the latter’s cursy-turned-homophobia will make the preteen protagonist’s first bsh wh unrequed love an ugly and rather public one.

A well-performed film that featur four unnnected gay storyl. Their credibly awkward first attempt at male-on-male terurse is one of the film’s gently ic highlights, though their cute idyll grows darker when emerg that Leo’s fear of beg found out as gay by his fay and iends is greater than even his need to be wh his first-ever boyiend. They’ve tablished a route that clus elaborate dner parti wh iends but is otherwise startg to suffote Hugo, who’s secretly seeg another man, Sebastian (Hugo Catalan, who played the gay lead Julian Hernanz’s I Am Happs on Earth om earlier this year).

The last story volv a retired universy profsor and poet, Joaqu (veteran actor Alonso Echanove), who’s married wh children and grandchildren but who proposns to a ripped htler (Alejandro Belmonte) a gay sna nohels, and who has to steal money to pay the steep fee his (also supposedly straight and married) object of sire asks for. This segment also reprents somethg of a let-down for at least gay dienc, as the other three stori seemed to build om youthful disvery and g out to a long-term relatnship and beyond while the closeted--old-age segment isn’t part of this logil progrsn.

It is also the story that, given s steam-room settg, packs the most (nonsexual) nudy, which might be logil but nohels feels like a ncsn to the mands of the ternatnal gay-movie marketplace, where any trailer of a foreign film needs full-ontal nudy to help sell even ser and emotnally rich art hoe dramas such as this one. All gay experience is on view the Mexin film 4 Moons. Now's the time bee Serg Tovar Velar's unfettable 4 Moons is the ft, most universal and most movg gay film of the past perfectly timed for the centennial of D.

Velar dramatiz nothg ls than of the four ag of gay male life--the riddle of the Sphx unriddled but shuffled, enfold, ntrasted, and bed. Its stori pture the feelgs and terts that ed to be nied to gay filmgoers or else would hi gay experienc the margs, pleats or wrkl of mastream movi.