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| Kinky bondage sex is promised on this poster for Anahí Berneri's A Year Without Love |
A lonely man who translates French to Spanish and teaches a young woman in the language, while he works on his autobiographical novel, also battles serious illness due to having AIDS.
A Year Without Love is written by Susana Silvestre (Life According to Muriel/La Vida Según Muriel (1997)), Pablo Pérez (El Mendigo Chupapijas (2009, short)) and debuting co-writer/director Anahí Berneri (Alanis (2017)). It is based on Pérez's same-titled autobiography.
It is a starkly disheartening, Argentine film about an HIV-positive, poor wretch guy trying to get by. The DVD accentuates the erotic and sexual aspects of the film, undoubtedly in a ploy to sell more units, but these aspects are actually few and far between. The film might be erotic if you are into sadomasochism.
The photography (by Lucio Bonelli (Re Loca (2018))) focuses closely on all that is ugly and detestable. Buenos Aires looks awful in Un Año Sin Amor, a very discouraging film. It never rises to success, because there is no suspense in the story, which is mostly just things that happen to the lead, and because its crude focus on everything ugly doesn't say anything in itself other than that life with AIDS stinks, which isn't compelling enough in itself for an entire film to rely on.
Cost: Unknown
Box office: 65k $
= Uncertain - but almost certainly a mega-flop
[A Year Without Love premiered 11 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 102 minutes. Shooting took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The film opened #93 to a 3k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, where it peaked at #89 and in 2 theaters (different weekends), grossing 24k $ (36.9 % of the total gross). Its biggest market was Argentina with 27k $ (41.5 %). North America was the 2nd biggest, and the UK was the 3rd biggest with 7k $ (10.8 %). If made on a very low 250k $ budget, the gross would result in a 0.26 time cost return, ranking the film a mega-flop. It won a prize in Berlin, among other honors. Berneri returned with Encarnación (2007). Juan Minujín (The Two Popes (2019)), who plays Pablo Pérez, returned in Stephanie (2005). A Year Without Love is fresh at 91 % with a 7.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of A Year Without Love?
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