Pablo is a lonely boy of 13, with a troublesome past. Much of the reasons for this remains a mystery until a stranger arrives on the scene. An oddly calm and well-dressed man ‘meets’ the young boy on a quiet country road, where, supposedly, his car just broke down. The stranger appears, nonetheless more interested in the boy than attempting to solve his problem. Despite at first maintaining a precautious distance, despite warnings from certain villagers, Pablo slowly loses all his protective layers, opens up to the man, and gradually sees in him a friend.
I wanted this film to be nothing else than a reference point in the world of film, in terms of hyper indie films. I wanted to give back what indie films so rarely ever attempt to portray: visual poetry. – Iván Noel, Director
En Tu Ausencia (In you Absence) covers very vividly the transition of childhood to adolescence, the discovery (the confusion) of sexuality (also through his only friend, the shameless 15 year old Julia), and the importance that seemingly meaningless events can take in the mind of a growing boy. From a friend, to close friend, the boy finally sees in this stranger, the one person who appears to understand him : almost a replacement father. And thus his affection for this man grows as he nears, quite unknowingly, blindly towards the tragedy that is to mark him permanently.
He had no problems (nor did his parents) with masturbation scenes and nude scenes, which is no big deal in coming-of-age-films in Spain. Spain is still a far cry from the absurd repressions of neighbouring countries. – Iván Noel about Gonzalo, the leading actor, in an interview with Destroyer
I didn’t find it on IMDB :(
Can we buy a DVD somewhere?
As far as I know, it´s not out on DVD up to now, but just appearing in different festivals. As soon as a DVD will be available, we´ll try to have it available in our shop Buchladen Erlkoenig in Stuttgart – as other “milky” films featured here (f.e. the italian “Ballo a tre passi” appearing here a few weeks ago.)
You will not necessarily find everything on the website http://www.gaybooks.de (which is a collaboration of Gay Bookshops in Germany), because there may be copyright restrictions. So please ask directly if in doubt…
(I hope this will not appear as obstrusive commercial advertising – but be assured we´re not only in it for the money!)
We hope this movie will be available soon on dvd or in theaters…
Where can I get this Film?
I can’t find a torrent or any mention of this movie anywhere. If somebody runs across it, please let me know
Just to clarify, the download is the clip shown above, not the film.
I hope you don’t consider this to be spam, but I wonder if the movie “XXY” wasn’t of your interest. OK, it’s not about boys – at least, not exactly. Unfortunately, I haven’t found an english trailer, but a German
http://www.xxy-film.de/
(There’s also a TV broadcast from “aspekte” that deals wirh the subject: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/512162)
and the original one in Spanish:
http://xxylapelicula.puenzo.com/main.html
The movie will start on June 26th in Germany. It promises to be some heavy brain-input.
in the movie they used the fake word “alot” in the subtitles…
CycyLolo, I would have guessed this boy to be below your target age range. Pray tell!
I’ve read the book who inspired the film. A very good story with tension…
wow, what a trip. I would like to see the movie……
This was mentioned in Destroyer a while back, I’ve been waiting for it to come out. The boy is cool. Only thing is, that guy kinda creeps me out. Just seems like a creepy pedo guy. That’s the last thing I want to be when I grow up.
@ Max: It’s the facial hair and thehand on the knee, isn’t it?
Yea I agree with Max.
The boy is really cute, but the guy… The guy ruins it.
it’s too confusing is he his father? Is he a pedo? i guess I’ll have to watch the movie. by the way if someone approached me like that I would freak, and when I grow up i don’t want to be like that guy either Max.
hm, I would be suprised, if the movie doesn’t turn out in the end to be one of these typical “pedomaniapoorboybadguy”-films, but maybe I’m wrong, I dunno…..
I have not seen the movie, but I regret saying that nowadays almost it is not possible to speak about the BLove without criminalizing it. I do not blame the artists, at least we can see a child as Gonzalo, in a history that us concerns. If Ivan was not showing the BLove under a reproving look, it would be immediately catalogued as pedophile…
What happened to your “Into the Green” post? Censorship already on the first day with your new server?
@Soylent Green
Yepp, some idiot thought he has to complain about us at our hoster. But we will move to an “adult” hoster today anyways so we don’t need that much passwords anymore.
@Mon Dieu:
???? What’s the point???? Do we know each other???
Hi guys,
Just to say that this stunningly beautiful (and uncensored!) coming of age movie has been selected for the Vancouver Film Festival this September.
Look out for it then if you are in the region.
The film is due to come out in DVD in 3 months time (Vanguard International Cinema)
The same director also just finished shooting his second feature – a very powerful and honest story of the difficult relationship between a father and his 12 year old son. It’s called ‘Brecha’.
Looking forward to seeing both movies by Ivan Noel. Met the director on a train this summer. Film trailers are stunning,!
just saw this movie tonight at the vancouver film festival. they showed it unedited – nudity and everything. i was shocked and i heard ‘gasps’ of disbelief from the audience. oddly enough though, the place was packed and they knew exactly what the movie was about but wanted to see it anyway. the director was there and he talked about the sexuality of the movie with the young boy actor and how Westerners may perceive the film. bravo to the festival for taking the chance and showing it ‘all’. they are also screening the movie for high school kids this week!!! wtf??? the whole point of the movie is youth sexuality – is he gay, is he not, is he the protagonist in the relationship with the man, jerking off on a mountain side?? is this what they should be showing kids??? i was waiting for the cops to kick the door in and take the director away in handcuffs. one thing i found odd tho is that the 99 minute version was seen but amazon is selling a 136 minute dvd???? does anyone know what that version will have that the one i saw tonight will not have????
@weirdal
It would be strange if one wouldn’t show a film about the concerns of youth to the people who are affected by these concerns — the youth. But as we know society doesn’t care for logic much.
I love this site.
When will this film be available as a torrent or on emule?
Hi there,
…dudes, I hope you will support the film and DVD (and not download on emule etc.) …These films have a real hard time getting support. I sold my house to make it, and have not made one euro on it yet at all, two years later. Love to make more, and more ‘real’ cinema’, but wont be able to if the dvd isnt supported.
only 13$ on amazon, they’re selling this december.
Thanks guys,
Ivan Noel, films director
Dear Ivan Noel,
I put the DVD already on my wishlist — simply because a download would not good enough for me! Keep on with your good work; can’t wait to watch EN TU AUSENCIA and BRECHA :-)))
The DVD was released on 23th December but there is still no torrent. Why? Did somebody buy the DVD?
are u retarded? the producer and director visits this blog and you talk about downloading it. drop 17 bucks and support the filmmaker. hell, azov was selling it for 9 bucks. sheesh pathetic.
Well, i’m sorry but i’m 15 and it would be pretty awkard if i would buy the dvd online and the postman would deliver it to my house and the parents would ask me what did i get, wouldn’t it?
Hi all,
Yes, if you can, support the film that has just come out at Amazon (and not download it). It’s not the sort of DVD that needs to be wrapped in a brown paper bag: a serious ‘world film’ that did very well in its premiere in Vancouver (now in Palm Springs).
Why support? It’s a hyper indie film, no finances from anywhere at all. I sold my house to make it. Any future related film will depend 100% on the sales of this DVD, and I’ve got a damn good script for the next one!
thanks guys
Hi Ivan Noel I just received my dvd and enjoyed the film. The only thing is the ending. Could you explain to us on the imdb forum for the film please. There a topic already created.
Surprised how good the film looked with a budget of $500,000.
Indieflicklover, can u make a dvdrip and post it on one of the torrent sites?
Please, please, i am dying to see this movie.
Sorry I can not but I can suggest for you a free way to watch it legally. Why not just rent it from blockbuster or netflix by trying out their service ? I know netflix has it.
Well i’m not from USA and i don’t have a credit card, so that isn’t possible.
to krneki2
As you know I’m the director and producer of In Your Absence. As I already mentioned above I sold litterally everything I had to make it. I also already mentioned I have not had a single cent back from it, and the only way I am able to continue making films is through the (very cheap) dvd sales.
Now I understand there might be some complications for you to get a copy, but…
What are you playing at?! You are flaunting your illegal behaviour on the site, and even pushing poeple to pirate the film. You have no shame at all? No respect for the filmmakers? For the film itself?
At the very worst, seeing as though the actual filmmaker wrote here, you might have asked to be sent a complimentary copy. For god’s sake stop being so incredibly disrespectful to this film.
Guys, please stop asking for Downloads of this movie.
I really don’t care if you download films made by big production companies who are earning a hell load of money anyways but let’s try to be more respectful about independent productions — especially if they are brave enough to tell the stories Hollywood is afraid of.
Ivan Noel and Josh very well said.
krneki2 there is still always the other dvd rental services overseas. Like lovefilms, etc and prepaid debt/credit cards so that should not be a problem still. If that is still to much trouble then oh well I tried. I was going to rent it first myself but decided just to buy it. Glad I did.
Josh I think you hit the nail on the head. The courage it takes to direct these kind of films that Hollywood is not willing to risk doing because they know it would fail at the box office is what I love. It has to take a great deal of courage to direct these kind of films because I am sure you still have people trying to boycott them even if they are not very well known. Who knows some people who are help making the film may not agree with it as well. It just may not be known because they don’t say anything. Very possible.
Ivan Noel is your next film going to look like a actual movie like En Tu Ausencia did ? I don’t know why but sometimes I have trouble watching films that don’t look like a actual movie but more like from a home video camera. I don’t know much about movie making but I been told a lot of this is because of the type of camera used and the lighting plays a big part. I never realized how much of a huge difference lighting could make. It makes people look totally different and more movie like. For example when you see a famous person in a film they look different than in person. I guess it all has to do with the lighting. I always noticed this.
One more question have you seen the Swedish horror film Let The Right One In yet? If so how did you like it?
Does anyone know if I can pay to download the movie online?
It is available at http://www.azovfilms.com/proddetail.asp?prod=90119
I just rented this from Netflix….
Does anyone know if the US version is censored? The movie seems too mainstream (ie. amazon and netflix) to allow for nude images.
it’s uncensored but there is an extended version coming out in a few months on dvd and blu-ray.
@weirdal
Ow? Any idea what made them releasing another version so much later?
european market.
I have seen films that is Beautifu, Lasse Nielse.
see my new tralier. from my new movie ,,The Story of Net,,.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AMvc-NGM8Y
I just purchased & viewed the film “En Tu Ausencia”.
Ivan Noel made a beautiful movie but man o man o man he portrayed the boylover as a trickster of the worst sort.
Ivan Noel please do not perpetuate the lies about us who love boys: Please. What an awful self pitting un-understanding the boylover Paco was. The boy Pablo was scared for life and all Paco could do was think of his own suffering. In real life we are not that way. Well maybe some of us are: Darn.
Disclaimer: I have no one here in mind, no one.
SPOILER — do not read further without being forewarned.
Actually Paco (The Man) was not a boylover. He was pretending to be one and won the heart and love of the boy only to dash it when Pablo discovered him in bed with his mom making fun of how easy Pablo was to fool.
When Pablo was a young adult listening to Paco explain … he heard Paco say to him, “I don’t suppose you have any idea what it is to love a person and then lose them.” Wow what an insensitive ignoramus. Pablo had loved his Papa and Paco and had lost them both. Pablo was left devastated.
So Paco was not a boylover. What he was was a self pitting heterosexual man without any understanding of the love between boys and the men in their lives.
Thank you Ivan Noel for showing us how ignorant heterosexuals really are.
Lukas
PS: Buy The Film “En Tu Ausencia” helping both Noel and yourself. L
Hi guys,
…Mmmm interesting development in this thread. I was told that there are as many interpretations of a film than there are individuals, but…
Hope not to offend anyone but there isn’t any ‘boylover’ in the story as far as I am concerned, not even half of one. (there is though the very nasty opportunist – the postman).
I am simply playing with how poeple these days filter information and convert them into something they are not – if that makes sense.
For North Americans and British poeple, all you have to do is have a man look at any child that isnt his own (and even then…) and they already start interpeting it as perverted (a survey was carried out a while ago in which a photo of a man in the company of 7 year old footballers was shown, and 80% of British, when asked what they saw, replied ‘A peadophile’). Very few poeple have any idea quite of extraordinarily damaging that is for children, teachers, adults, and the natural contact bewteen each group. The very soul has been sucked out of education, voluntary work is suspicious, poeple are frightened, it causes a domino effects felt in more areas than anyone cares to believe. Quite simply, we are sacrificing a generation of children for the sake of a mismanaged guilt by adults who over-sacrilise kids in order to paliate an emotional vacuum.
It takes on incredible levels sometimes: I had a mother admit that when she saw my film she almost vomited when she saw paco put a hand on the kids knee…
That is a profoundly disturbed society that is capable of forcing such extreme emotions on a completely anodine gesture.
So, no, really, the actor Paco is not even pretending to be interested in Pablo, I don’t think he is even vaguely aware of a possible role of BL. He is just playing with the fact the kid needs a presence, a friend, someone to love. No deeper than that.
How Pablo, the kid, interprets that is quite another matter, though.
Hi again,
sorry to be back so soon, butjust after writing the above, I came across this article, which underlines exactly what I said.
Incredible statistics… 25% school with no males? Damn. Even I wasn’t aware of the extent of things in that country.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/talking_politics/article/26900/
I know when the men in my life back in the 1950’s when I was Pablo’s age touched my knee it was sexual. Those touches may as well have been and probably were anodyne as in becoming equal with each other. When I have done the same thing with a boy it has been the same. It is a way of saying we are equal , I feel your pain, i.e., an anodyne gesture.
Man-o-man-o-man in the culture we live in now here in the USA no more of that kind of behavior. How sad. I have such fond memories of the men who touched me. Loved them right through to the end of their lives. They were not tricking me like Paco was tricking Pablo. He was tricking Pablo. Paco wanted to be with Pablo’s mom whom he loved. Don’t you remember your movie? Just kidding Ivan. The more I think about your movie the more I appreciate it. Thank you for it.
Lukas,
PS: Thinking of the boy who played Pablo. Remember the boy Laurent in Louis Malle’s film “Murmur of The Heart”? As an adult he was interviewed and asked if playing that part had affected him at school. He said, “No, every once in a while my pals would ask me how my mom was.” Then he went on to comment on what a shrimp he was back then. Makes me smile. What shrimps most all of us were back then: Beautiful Shrimps. L
PSS: Look over on Bleeding Queers and a picture from your film on May 18. You will see some comments and see how I came about knowing about your film. http://bleedingqueers995.blogspot.com/
L
Un mensaje por Sñr Ivan Noel. Primero pido las disculpas por mi español. Como hombre ingles, viviendo en españa, he buscado en varios tiendas (como El Corte Ingles, Fnac etc) una copia de tu DVD pero hasta ahora, no lo he encontrado en ningún sitio. Me puedes decir si sale el DVD en las tiendas ó si tengo que pedirlo por el internet. Me gustaria mucho a comprarlo.
Un saludo
El Zorro
Just saw this movie and have to say it was a brilliant. That’s two bona fide classics from Europe I’ve seen this year; Let the Right One in and now En Tu Ausencia. For any one worrying about buying this on Amazon- don’t. Worth every cent.
Yeah, I have to agree, I thought it was BRILLIANT as well!
I meant Let The Right One In, of course.
:-)
p.s. Para El Zorro, No esta todavía en Fnac etc. pero si por internet, aunque que versión de por allí.
I saw ETA a couple of months ago. One of the things that struck me about it was how beautifully and sensitively photographed it was. I could smell the dust and almost feel the shimmering of the trees and the ripples of the water. Images like candy!
As an aside, I never saw Paco as a boylover, but as a scheming manipulator, using the boy. It almost broke my heart when Pablo offers himself to him at the river. And he is not rebuffed— he is ignored. So much worse. In some ways that was the emotional climax of the film for me. All was downhill from there, after the boy has been betrayed.
Every year I see a few (very few!) films that stay with me. One of the all time greats was, and is, AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS. ETA is such a film. Sr. Noel has earned my gratitude, and respect.
Before I posted I hadn’t read every comment on this thread. I just went back and noticed the request by one poster for a “freeby” of the film.
We have no right to decry the absence of films that we want to see when we try to short-change the artists who are trying to make those very films.
I saw ETA on my Netflix subscription. But now I am going to buy my own copy of it.
I won’t feel right until I do.
C’mon, guys: let’s put our money where our mouths are. It won’t hurt that bad at all.
@ Franz
I second that. This is a film that is of great interest to gay people and people with an interest in teenage boys. It is a clever, gutsy film. It avoids cliches and tells a tale that mainstream film making would never do.
Buy the film and support a new film makers talent.
Yes Franz, Pablo was ignored. Paco simply didn’t get it did he. I think that is what Ivan Noel said he was trying to show: That people simply don’t get how they come across to other, i.e., all self absorbed. Just remember how Paco talked to the adult Pablo at the end of the film. Man-o-man that left Pablo dazed.
I sure hope we can get Ivan Noel really on the side of boylovers. I think he should be taking part in the discussions over on Sidney’s Bleeding Queers: http://bleedingqueers995.blogspot.com/ Just try to slowly take us in.
Lukas
Dear guys,
Without wanting to take part in a point by point discussion (delighted, but not the right place here), the film was obviously not about BL or not BL, it was ultimately only about the kid.
Paco is the representation of how adults can ignore (or forget) quite how important and sensitive those years of our lives are.
The film, I hope, is devoid of any morality for moralities sake. Even the horrid postman’s abuse can be interpreted as something else.
The issue is not being one thing or the other, or the director being part of one group or the other, it about being good or being bad. This basic Truth is blind to any one fashion, trend, hysteria, or morality-of-the-month. Everyone knows if they are good or not. There are wicked and good people in every group of society, it is not one sexualities monopoly to be ‘bad’ (in which case heterosexuality would fare very badly statistically speaking). This ‘fact’ simply doesn’t exist without inviting a massive hypocrisy.
Take the ’swine flu’. This year nearly half a million poeple will die of common flu. Only 100 have dies of swine flu. Yet we are hysterical about swine flu. Because it is unknown.
If the truth were known, things would be very different indeed. …No more finger pointing by anyone.
What i tried to show in the film was the truth of what a young lad like Pablo might have felt in real life. Not an adult extrapolation, or moulded and manipulated truth on so-called childhood, but actually what a relatively free kid would feel. Paco is irrelevant as a person, he is a representation only.
Wow, that was light…
In fairness I didn’t see the film as a BL film. Sure it would of interest to BLs, but what struck me more was the lifes of people in a small community and how they interacted. Growing up in such a place it really struck a chord. The film captured the confusion, both mentally and sexually, of a troubled teen boy, but to me its a universal tale and should be seen as such. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the main reason I loved the film was the fact that I enjoyed it as a good old fashioned tale, told well and without compromise.
Dear Ivan
Thanks for the response. Shame the film isn’t available through the Spanish outlets yet. Any idea how long before it will be ? I guess I will just have to use Amazon to purchase the film. I am longing to take part in the discussions on the film but until I have seen it, that will have to wait.
Problem is, there appears to be 2 versions on the Amazon site. Is there a difference or are there simply two different covers. I would obviously prefer the more “complete” version, rather than any shortened edited version.
Advice from anyone here would be appreciated.
El Zorro
Дая раньше тоже так думал… Сейчас переосмыслил
Ivan Noel,
As I realized what your film was really about (your explanations) the more and more I appreciated it. Thanx!
And El Zoorro,
I purchased the 99 minute version before realizing there was a 136 minute version. So I ordered the 136 minute version. I have no idea the difference but will let you know in a week or so.
Yes Ivan Noel,
Your film appeals to us boylovers. Maybe it will be a boylover who comes up with the societal systems that will make our lives much better … finding answers for the terrible behaviors we are all capable of: He will because of his basic motivation and follow-on education/experiences. I am thinking of several men who have helped us all with big steps forward with this motivation inside of them.
Hey Ivan Noel,
I am buying your films and looking forward to purchasing “Brecha”:
http://www.trailerspy.com/trailer/1160/Brecha-a-film-by-Ivan-Noel-3min-trailer
Lukas
Hi Lukas
Thanks for the info about the two different versions, although please don’t give the story away to me until I have seen the film. Is there anyway on Amazon to see which version is which ? For example, is it the longer version, the 2009 one with the Vanguard cover ?
Thanks
El Zorro
El,
Yes “Vanguard” is the 136 minute version.
Lukas
Ivan Noel,
I was thinking about you when I was out jogging in the wilderness this morning. Also I was thinking about the late and great French filmmaker Louis Malle. I think Louie would say to your comment about people identifying the man with the 7-year-old as a pedophile, “So – What is wrong with being a pedophile?” Louie always asked the question, “Who is wrong/what is wrong?” in his movies.
This question began with his 11-year-old experience when a Nazi Officer was asking the boys in his Catholic Boarding School to disclose the Jewish boy they were hiding. Louis accidently made eye contact with his friend, the officer saw it and took the boy away. The boy died in a concentration camp.
This traumatic experience worked on Louis causing him to ask that question over and over, “Whose fault was it/what is wrong anyway? In the case of him exposing his friend to the Nazi Officer it was not Louie’s fault it was the fault of the Nazis and before that the fault of leaders and people all over the world that let the sequence of events that brought about the Nazis happen.
May you Ivan Noel become as good a thinker as Louis Malle.
Lukas
PS: This weekend I am watching a documentary Malle made “Phantom India” (363 minutes) learning all I missed during the 10 years I made an industrial product in Calcutta for export to the USA. L
PSS: Louis actually made a delightful movie concerning the subject of pedophilia: “Zazie Dans Le Metro”. It is a novel (same title) by Raymond Queneau for those of you who read French. L
PSSS: Best to you always Ivan Noel. L
Louis Malle, as many european filmmakers back in a less morally regressive era, I don’t think attempted to portray anything specifically ‘pedophile’. Or if he did it was in the real original greek sense of the word. It’s only that doing honest films with youngsters in them, …how could you escape such themes? It simply wouldn’t be honest anymore, or not real. In those days,you were entitled to be at one with the truth of these various situations (’Souffle au Coeur’ where the growing boy does naughty with his mother, etc.).
These days truth or at least those truths are savagely repressed. The truer a film is, the more virulent poeple get, as it becomes dangerous for their morals.
It is a very difficult balancing act as a film director to tell certain truths about youngsters and not end up in court for doing so.
You know that my film is hardly very ‘polemical’, and certainly nothing of the ilke of ‘1900′ etc., but it still had poeple walking out of the theatre in England. One wanted to call police about the film. We had that ‘vomiting woman’ I mentioned …which is of course very funny, because that is what i set out to do in the first place – provoke reactions where, in actual fact, where there is strictly nothing there! They are expressing their own thoughts, not mine!
I saw and have the Indian film by Malle. Quite a marathon! You maybe dont know his experimental early films, where pigs and naked children play in a bizarre garden? …not my cup of tea, but he certainly was an interesting filmmaker. The sort that can no longer exist.
Now let’s see what Heneke has in store for us with his new Cannes winner ‘the white ribbon’. Heneke is the only ‘Malle’ left.
Thanks Lukas
I shall be ordering that for myself very soon. All I need to do then is take a quick trip around the country here and get it signed. I am sure that in a few years, a signed copy will be worth quite a bit.
El Zorro
Ivan Noel,
Malle was incredible wasn’t he. Michael Haneke — “Time of The Wolf”. Oh wow! You have to make yourself naked and jump into the fire (Metaphor) to be one of the “Just” ones. I am so looking forward to seeing “White Ribbon”.
That experimental movie of Malle’s you refer to is “Black Moon” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072709/plotsummary Yes! I have it. The girl gives herself to the old woman.
About getting naked and jumping into the fire my favorite Israeli General Moshe Dayan said, “If your enemy has a big gun pointed right at you get under a rock.” Guess that means you have to chose the right time to get naked and jump into the fire.
Looking forward to more Ivan Noel as I think everyone here is .. fingers crossed for you. I cannot express enough how grateful I am that you have engaged with me in this conversation.
Lukas
PS: As for the original Greek idea of pedophilia. Malle said that if you try to artificially reproduce something from the past it becomes folklore and will die. You have to go back and incorporate what was good in the past into the present — a circular way of progressing. Progress is not linear.
The great American who helped the Japanese recover after near total devastation after WWII helped them remember that learning / progressing was circular. The member of the Toyoda family that is taking over the helm of Toyota this year has vowed to help them remember what they knew before.
L
El,
Sounds like a nice trip to visit some good / brave people. In my imagination I will be right there with you.
Lukas
Hi Lukas
Sounds like a nice trip to me too !! But at the moment, it is nothing more than a pipe dream. It is not that I have made any firm plans to travel or to meet anyone, and don’t even know if I would be welcome. But it is nice to dream, isn’t it ? Who knows. Maybe one day.
El Zorro
actually, vanguard’s is the 99 minute version. call them and theyll tell you the same thing. ;)
Its on netflix
El,
I hope you make your trek to Ivan Noel’s village. I think you will be welcomed with open arms at least by the old men in the village square. Hope you get the meet the old guy who stole their radio. Thank goodness for “Old Men” — they have lived it/experienced it all.
I ran across a Guardian article the other day called “Mad about the boy”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/10/history.society
My read of this article came to: Boy-love is prevalent in all societies, the Greeks simply were more open about it in their art. In other words it was a media distortion that only the Greeks were up to these deeds. I am thinking about my boy scout experiences in a small industrial town in the middle of the USA in the 1950’s; Hardly Ancient Greece.
I am looking forward to seeing Michael Haneke’s “White Ribbon” when it comes out on DVD. In the mean time his “Time of The Wolf” is a most thoughtful movie. However, my thoughts on Louis Malle is that Malle was on an entirely different advanced level of good. Just my thought … but I think the thought of many.
Love to you,
Best travels to you on your dreamed of trek,
Lukas
I bought this film a few month ago and this was one of the best coming of age film i ever saw, espescially the making of :)
I cant wait to buy “Brecha”. I hope the film is as good as En Tu Ausencia
@Lukas Whats the difference between the 99min and the 136min version? I have the 99min version
btw. another very good movie is the 2001 canadian movie “Jetboy”
Caedmon
First of all, I’d like to say that it’s still amazing to me that the director of this film actually came to this site and has been so open with us! =O
I understand that Paco was tricking poor Pablo, but I still think he must have been a BL, even if he was interested in Pablo’s mother as well. There are just too many times when he shows abnormal interest in boys… Even though the director said above that this was not the case, these instances were obviously deliberate by Ivan Noel:
1. Glancing at the boys at the side of the street multiple times as he walks into town
2. Checking out the mechanic’s son (he was so entranced he didn’t hear the mechanic talk about changing his car’s oil)
3. Talking to the boy in the stable (and then Pablo sees him from behind and leaves)
4. Looking at the boys who are going to the lake to swim as he and Pablo leave
I really don’t know how else to interpret these signs… Anyone else agree?
By the way, I just checked the IMDB page for ETA and it turns out Noel was even responsible for the music, and had a cameo in one of the bar scenes! Amazing what one man can do!
Hi Freebird,
Nothing amazing about posting on a site where different viewpoints are made! You should see the comment I get from the 50 to 70 year-old women’s group! :-)
About the music: the feat was not so much I wrote/played the music (which I’ve been doing for years), but that the lead kid actor played all the 2nd guitar tracks (about 60% of the music) after only 4 months guitar lessons.
Regarding your comments: let me play devil’s advocate again:
1. There are not only boys but girls on the way into town, and …if you were stared at like that, you might well stare back!
2. It is not unusual that I stare, totally fascinated, at some baby’s/kids eyes. I remember only recently being entranced by a baby with translucent almost watery blue eyes that seemed like a portal into another world. Personally I find it easy to stare at some special esthetic quality in kids that doing it with adults. I see the same with Paco in this scene: the kid comes out of nowhere with this intense, focused gaze, the way kids do unashamedly sometimes. Again, enough to lose track of a conversation about engines…
Another point is that Paco is wearing sunglasses… who knows if he not looking at a bug in the kid’s left shoulder.
3. Paco just found out his car’s not ready, has nothing to do, nowhere to go. Had it been the boy’s sister there he would have spoken to her. We don’t see that Paco WENT to the boy, probably the opposite.
4. The reason is simple: Pablo puts his head down ashamed when they pass, and the others stare at him/them: Paco’s gaze back is almost a ‘what’s-all-this-about’ look.
Either that, or…Paco, as the French say, ‘works both with steam and sails’ :-)
I saw it today and must say that it’s a stunningly beautiful film, more so than any I’ve seen recently. The scene where they sit under the tree, and when they walk just around, or even when Pablo swims in the lake, they are totally soothing. But the ending was a disappointment; what was the point having a twist ending? Why did Paco have to come out as a heterosexual, non-understanding bastard?
Actually, to call it a disappointment is the understatement of the year, why couldn’t you have made this the first beautiful film about a non-exploitative relationship between a boy and a man? A happy ending wouldn’t have been necessary, as long as long as he would have kept his preferences when it comes to love.
Thank you William for your comments about the film.
But… Can I suggest you are maybe a little naive, ..out of touch perhaps?
You would like to see a BL version of Gone With The Wind? …It’ll be be for another era in another country, or 2000 years ago in Greece. Neither in our society nor in our time.
I’m sure you’re aware of the current climate. It is one in which, for instance, the English have just (yet another) new law this week in which ALL persons who ferry children and adolescents to scout groups must previously have police clearance to prove they are not a child-rapists.
Things have gone very far. Children are now confused, I know some are deepy affected as they have grown up. Another example? I was giving French classes to an International group of primary 9 year-old kids. At the end of the course we relaxed and watched a French kids film. I thought ‘My Father’s Glory’ was a good choice. They really enjoyed the film, …until they got to the scene where the two small brother shower nude with a hose outside. The classroom went COMPLETELY INSANE. Amongst other insults, shrieks of horror, the most frequent comment was ‘He’s a peadophile!’ talking about the child actor…. (?!) Confused indeed, and guinea-pigs to a group of unstable adults venting their badly disguised desires through the medias.
I don’t know if we have gotten used to these things, but they are extremely serious, deep rooted instabilities in our society. It is beyond medieval, and extraordinarily dangerous as this creates generations of neurosis, wrecked relationships, the end of volunteer work, police state and constant suspicion etc.
Your demand is akin to asking a german filmmaker in 1938 in Berlin to shoot a love story between two jews, one of whose father is a money-lender called Shylock.
I can assure you the ‘love’ message would NOT be understood, however good the film. Even the jews themselves would have found something …odd about it all. Oddly out of touch.
I am seeking a certain reality in my films. There is no doubting that there probably are, somewhere in this society, a few that live with a quiet secretive illicit relationship, but the REALITY of the situation in this day and age is that it is all perverse, even legal it is illegal in poeple’s mind, everything is distorted, shrouded with intense fear, relationships (and I mean even parental ones) have become strained, false, risky. We are in a world where everything has become mixed and confused in a mass of hysterical nonesense. How on earth do you expect a filmmaker to shoot a BL love story in those circumstances? You are truly naive. I am all FOR making films on taboo themes, I have quite a few stories up my sleeve that cover a large gamut of the ‘unacceptable’ (like consenting incest, a truly difficult one), but am not prepared, as a first time film director to go to prison for my Art. Not yet anyhow.
Just another post to admit that I am also a little out of touch, out of touch with these posts in this site.
I’d like to answer a couple of the most recurring comments, some dating back a long time.
1) Re the length of the film. As far as I am aware, there is NO other version other than the 99min one. I do believe the 134min version was a printing mistake. The directors cut IS 134mins long, but has never been released, to my knowledge.
2) Was the film censored? Censorship takes place from the moment the film is written. One cannot write all of reality in a script because child actors live in our western society. I used to masturbate on trees. I guess that was both odd and interesting. But. can I tell that?
Censorship also happens naturally during a shoot. Editors and other responsible people will choose certain shots according to what they feel is ‘acceptable’. True to this film like many others.
Then there is the censorship at the distribution level. Yes the film did have more daring scenes in its first cut, but ones that were almost automatically manipulated to avoid ‘problems’.
There was nudity, but, finally, the decision not to include it was taken by myself on the basis that what this nudity MEANT in the script, the use it had in the storyline, would simply get completely lost to other ways of seeing the scene which are specific to out society and time (anything from disgust, shock, outrage, to calling the cops). It was narratively just not worth wrecking the natural rhythm of the film for this. In the 70’s in France this would have fitted in well into the story, not nowadays …But even with the ‘gentle’ version, people in England STILL walked out on it!
3) Piracy: someone above asked me to explain how much money we indie directors/producers/writers make from a film, in order to make people understand the bad of pirating a movie. The fact is, I did sell my house and belongings to make this film, and I have not earned ANYTHING back on it at all yet.
The facts are simple: my film can be downloadable even viewable anywhere for no money at all. I have lost all I had in the belief it was a good idea making this film. Piracy totally destroys such projects.
I am sickened, absolutely appalled by those so-called ‘defensors’ of freedom who claim it is a good idea to ’share’ files online. They are despicable, ignorant people. Sure these big companies need to be woken up to their abuses, but I am a perfect example of one whose Art has been wrecked by pirates from the start, before my career could even start properly. I am VERY grateful to those who actually purchased the DVD, and for their support, but there are 4 google pages where one can buy or rent my film, and about 40 pages where one can downlaod it without paying a thing.
The sort of honest, independent, risqué movie that some people above would like to see, and me to make, simply wont happen because of piracy.
My only hope is that even more people will support such films as I make, when my 2nd feature ‘Brecha’ comes out soon.
Oh, I definitely hadn’t expected you to answer, thanks a lot for that. =)
Now, whereas I can wish some things in a movie had been different, I’m not impudent enough to tell the director s/he *should* have done things differently. Especially not considering the issues you mention (I agree more or less with what you say about that)… But, on the other hand, I don’t think it would necessarily had led to (that much of) an moral uproar had there been an appropriate different ending. I was personally relieved that there was nothing more than hugs – and a hand on a knee – between Pablo and Paco; unless it’s being done really well it’s probably better not having it at all. What I disliked was just Paco turning out to be heterosexual and not being attracted to Pablo, nothing more. I found that a bit too hard to believe, given everything we see him do in the movie (his hand on Pablo’s leg et cetera), and it would have been wonderful to have a movie with someone who’s attracted to boys and is not a villain but actually a very nice guy (before the ending at least).
And besides, people with a sensitive morality would probably have been equally outraged by the movie regardless of what Paco turns out to be, pleasing them is impossible (ok it would have outraged some more people I guess). ;)
By the way, I guess there’s no chance Brecha (or En tu ausencia) will be shown on Stockholm International Film Festival this year?
Hi again,
A couple more things I need to respond on (keeps me busy during my very long editing session I am having now!).
1) How can I put this (so it doesn’t hinder my chances of becoming Prime Minister later): in my experience the most unacceptable to the general population is Truth.
That sounds heavy and general, but simplified it means that when one defends false ideals, one becomes EXTREMELY susceptible to actual Truth.
Examples? The Church and Galileo. They tolerated him, and kept up their silly indoctrinations until he actually PROVED the truth. He was then sentenced to death. It is also why we have a saying ‘Truth hurts’.
In this current extreme climate, the slightest reference to truth in illicit relationships are very dangerous and a direct attack to their indoctrinations.
I remember about 6 years ago, in a small legal case in which the accused thought it was a good idea to have his other half testify in court that ‘he didnt mind, it was ‘fine’ what they did’… well you can imagine. They passed the heaviest sentence available to them, only because they didn’t have the death penalty.
I am sure I could have put fairly extreme scenes in my film(s) and it would have only caused a little uproar, as long as it was fake, or severely punished at the end. BUT… had I put something ressembling reality in which a man the way you suggested and ‘got away with it’, something akin to a reality they absolutely don’t want to know about, I can assure you I would not be here now. Basically, uphold the false ideals or never make films again. It was all a question of balance as a writer-director.
2) I think you are seeing the character of Paco through a personal filter. I don’t think there is anything at all in the film which suggests he might have been attracted to Pablo. I am sure it is a cultural difference. Let me explain: Gonzalo’s mother (and others) saw the film and …never realised there was ‘tension’ about a possible abuse. It came as a great surprise to her when a (foreign) friend of hers suggested it. In Spain, in the countryside, there is still a very physical way of being. Hands on knees are nothing. Everyone is so utterly physical with kids, it shocks outisders (a little like men holdig hands in India for instance). There are also no clear divides at all between kids and adults: they spend time together everywhere: in bars, at work, working together, etc. I was precisely playing with the fact that Paco does strictly nothing out of the ordinary in Spain, but seems ’shocking’ to other in other countries. It doesn’t even surprise them that a kid would change after a spontaneous swim the way Pablo does. Paco was just playing with the kids feelings to get to his mother, that’s all.
3) You are right, there is no pleasing people anymore. The most utterly innocent things are now subjected to suspicion. I have just completed my 3rd feature, a light comedy based on a 8 year-old primary class. The teacher is male, and never taught before. Very funny. But, I know that despite all my efforts, the film will be seen through the filter of ‘…is this guy going to touch them?’…which is both sad, out of context, and confirms the truly sick society we live in. I can do nothing about this in my films. The filter will always be there.
4) Thanks for reminding me about the Stockholm festival! I THINK we have submitted, but not sure. I am writing to them now.
And I read about the new British law. Absolutely crazy, even for the UK. Well… maybe not for the UK. =/
A breath of fresh air…I randomly clicked on this site today after googling En Tu Ausencia having been told many great things about the film. I have read the above posts and especially Ivan Noel’s and he brings the true outlook on society these days and how it’s corrupt with suspicion…Thanx, I really enjoyed reading your comments.
I have yet to see this film, but desperately would like to as I have heard so many good reviews.
Can anyone indicate where I can purchase this DVD…I have read there are 2 version, is this true??? I would prefer the full un-cut version so that I can see the film for its full meaning and purpose. Would prefer the Director’s cut, but I am under the impression that this is not possible.
I would also like to ‘purchase’ not download for free…then it would be the easiest way to say thanx to the Director for his efforts!!
Can anyone point me in the right direction
Thanx
S
Hi Stephen,
Good on you for buying it!
It’s available at amazon.co.uk, the US version now. A more local version should not be long to come.
No director’s cut available as yet.
Hope you enjoy!
IN