Rotting in the Sun
A satire on our times is as bitter and empty as the world it portrays.
Image courtesy of Mubi
As the career of the Chilean writer/director Sebastián Silva proceeds it becomes increasingly difficult to understand why his second feature, that fine award-winning film of 2009 The Maid, promised so much that has been unfulfilled. It was a work which drew on Silva’s childhood memories but which had wide appeal as a telling family drama with class as a central issue and a great central figure in the family’s maid played brilliantly by Catalina Saavedra. The films that followed have admittedly been works of a kind that were personal to Silva and, indeed, 2013’s Crystal Fairy even saw him casting three of his brothers in supporting roles. But that movie and the same year’s Magic, Magic while not uninteresting films lacked the clarity of purpose that had marked The Maid. As for Silva’s more recent work, regardless of its Brooklyn setting, 2015’s Nasty Baby again came across as very personal. It had gay characters at its centre, one of whom was played by Silva himself and it marked the point when Silva as a gay filmmaker first brought homosexuality into his work. But, if that piece impressed less than it might have done by ultimately changing tone unpersuasively, other films that he has made since have fared even less well being poorly received and obtaining only a limited release. However, that changes with what is his first feature film in five years, Rotting in the Sun, which now reaches us through Mubi.
It would be great if one could say that this work sees Silva back on track but it doesn’t. As in Nasty Baby, this has gay life at its centre and Silva is on screen not just as a gay character but as a version of himself. Similarly the gay American comedian Jordan Firstman has a leading role presented as though it were a self-portrait. The twist is that Silva and Firstman are choosing to play variations of themselves which show both men as decidedly unprepossessing. That could be considered an amusingly eccentric choice and those who take to Rotting in the Sun (some do) acclaim it as a biting satire centred on modern life and on its lack of any real values in which to believe. It’s a world epitomised by the extent to which technology has replaced personal communication and the pleasure principle has become central while ironically leading to dissatisfied lives. As portrayed here, Silva has reached a stage when he welcomes the idea of suicide because he is finding life to contain so little that is worthwhile. Even so, when invited by Firstman to work with him on a new television series for HBO he agrees to do so although the project is portrayed parodically as one of no merit.
A satire on the emptiness of life today could be effective and, however dark, could be compelling. But what Silva and his co-writer Pedro Peirano give us is hugely unenticing. In terms of any humorous potential it lacks wit and, despite being tongue-in-cheek, the versions of Silva and Firstman presented are just too unappealing. Once Firstman arrives in Mexico City to start work with Silva the storyline moves in a fresh direction dealing with a cover-up to conceal an accident that could be misread as a crime. This does have one positive benefit for the film in that it causes Silva’s housekeeper, Vero, to become central to the film and this role is taken by Catalina Saavedra who was so very splendid in The Maid. The actress is once again on good form – the film’s one sympathetic presence – but the drawn-out plotting of the film’s second-half becomes tedious and so slim that at 111 minutes Rotting in the Sun comes to seem excessively long.
Some have suggested that this could become a cult film and it does seem to cry out to be noticed due to the extent that it features shots of male genitalia. Early on a scene showing the first meeting of Silva and Firstman is set on a gay beach where nudity abounds and as director Silva ensures that the viewer is bombarded by it. Nor does it end there, but the tone of the film is so disillusioned that the sexual imagery lacks any sensual feeling. This element may nevertheless draw attention to the film, but in portraying a world without meaningful values Rotting in the Sun itself feels empty.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Jordan Firstman, Catalina Saavedra, Sebastián Silva, Juan Andrés Silva, Gerardo Sierra, Vitter Leija, Rob Keller.
Dir Sebastián Silva, Pro Jacob Wasserman, Screenplay Sebastián Silva and Pedro Peirano, Ph Gabriel Díaz Alliende, Pro Des Ana Ibarra, Ed Gabriel Díaz Alliende, Sofia Subercaseaux and Santiago Cendejas, Music Nasty Linares, Costumes Luba Ramirez.
Diroriro/Hidden content/Icki Eneo Arlo/Spacemaker Productions/The Lift etc.-Mubi.
111 mins. USA/Chile/Mexico. 2023. US Rel: 8 September 2023. UK Rel: 15 September 2023. Cert. 18.
