2/5 Loping, Meandering, Curious Movie
  by Daniel G. Lebryk
This film feels a bit like The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version), except that it wanders off in odd directions that seem to not make a lot of sense.

Technically, this is a fairly poorly made film. The handheld shots are wiggly for no reason. The lighting isn't always spot on. The editing is honestly abysmal, there's no descerable pacing, no build up of conflict, completely monotone (each cut is virtually the same length).

Helena is well played by Irene Azuela. Her brother Juan {Sebastian} is a limp voiceless character.

The film is a family in decay. The once huge music star mother is dying and left her children to more or less fend for themselves. The daughter Helena chooses not to attend school to take care of her mother. Her brother Juan {Sebastian} attends some very odd school with priests and nuns, but children running all over aimlessly. It's totally mysterious why there's one person that is sort of a body guard. There's bullies at school. There's a form of gangster that appears at weird times. Honestly, none of the characters really made much sense, who they were, why they were there, what they were supposed to do. There just was no motivation and no explanation. It might be a Mexico City thing, or a cultural thing that I just don't understand.

Juan {Sebastian} experiments with boys, girls, his sister, his "bodyguard". His sister just mopes around being snotty yelling at the maid. She only smiles at the very end of the film.

The structure of this film is very similar to The Dreamers. Both films build slowly, seem somewhat normal at the outset and then spin gradually into their gender and incest exploring territory. The Dreamers does this in a very explicit manner, Burn The Bridges does this with subtlty and suggestion. The large difference between these films, The Dreamers has wonderful pacing with conflict building and resolving. Burn The Bridges just moves along at it's own monotone pace, expecting the viewer to see conflict.

The film is rated PG-13. There is no nudity, a few fight scenes, no violent deaths, and not much strong language. There are many suggestive scenes. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles that can be turned off.

The DVD is not a good transfer at all. There are several jerky scenes where it looks like the 2:3 pulldown was done wrong. There is a single bonus feature, a making of featurette. Since I do not speak spanish, it was impossible to watch or comment on the featurette. It did appear to be not a very good 2 minute film.

It's not a film for younger viewers. It meanders around without getting to a point. I did not care about any of the characters in this film. The mother dies, no big deal. Juan {Sebastian} runs off, so what? Helena is sad that her mother has died, didn't care. If the point of this film was exploring gender and sensuality, watch The Dreamers.

July 27, 2009 update. As was so critically pointed out in a comment to this review, I made a mistake with the brother's name. It is not Juan, but Sebastian. For that error I am truly sorry. If you simply replace Juan with Sebastian, the review will be accurate.

5/5 A Family
  by Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
"Quemar Las Naves" ("Burn the Bridges")

A Family

Amos Lassen

Francisco Franco's "Quemar Las Naves" looks at a family of three: Eugenia (Claudette Maille), the mother, a former pop singer dying of cancer, Helena (Irene Azuela), her 19 year old daughter who wants to travel the world and become a singer like her mother and Sebastian (Angel Onesimo Nevares) who studies and plays classical music and has the desire to do little more than to move to the beach. The three are stuck somewhere between desire, death and dreams of the future.
Sebastian and Helena develop a special love for each other as they care for their dying mother yet Sebastian also feels sexually drawn to a boy at school. There is tension as well between brother and sister since Helena stays at home caring for her mother while Sebastian can go where he wants and even find a human connection away from home. In this case it is with Juan, the new boy at school. Helena becomes jealous and things at home explode after the death of Eugenia and the future of the family house becomes uncertain.
Into the picture comes Ismael with his repressed desire for Sebastian and Aurora who rents a room in the house. We are given a look at the strange nature of the family as well as the powerful position held by the youngest male and his yen for freedom in a place that is devoutly Catholic.
Every cliché in film appears here--incest, homosexuality, the broken family, abuse and death but Franco handles everything in a way so that it all appears brand new. The plot is not bogged down by these clichés because the performances are all so brilliant. The film glows with beauty and Azuela gives an Oscar worthy performance. This probably could have lapsed into black comedy; Franco guides his film to be a true highlight of Mexican cinema. Because we are never quite sure where the movie is going, we are interested throughout.