After the shocking nihilistic dystopia “Nuevo Orden”, for which he was awarded the second most important prize in Venice after the Golden Lion, ie the Grand Jury Prize, Mexican Michel Franco presented himself in Mostra a year later with another shocking, twisted film. “Sundown” was recorded in a Mexican-French-Swedish production, and he hired a famous actor, Tim Roth, for the lead role. We meet his Neil while he is on holiday with his wife and two teenage children in the famous Mexican tourist destination of Acapulco. It is to be assumed that Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is his wife, and Colin and Alexa his children, but from the beginning he seems somewhat uninterested, strange.
That he is a complete freak we will realize when he decides to stay in Mexico and after Alice receives a call that her mother has died and that she must urgently return to England where they live. Neil will make up that he lost his passport and while the rest of the family will board the plane in tears, he will stay cold pretending to try to get a passport and exit via the embassy, and will actually continue his vacation as if nothing had happened. He will rent a room in a poor hotel, he will continue to go to the beach every day and drink beer all day, he will even find this guy of about 50, 55 years and a young Mexican woman.
And nothing is clear to the viewer. Who is this silent guy who seems completely uninterested in everything that happens around him? Who is behaving like that? Whether Neil may be a sociopath, everything here is completely bizarre, sick, absurd, and the whole situation is almost morbidly funny. On the other hand, it is not funny at all when we see beaches patrolled by the police or the army with phantoms on their heads and automatic rifles in their hands, and very soon we will see why. Although we will, of course, find out who Neil is and may be able to understand his behavior, “Sundown” is one of those films that is better immersed in without any prior knowledge and as little information about the content and development of the story.
And otherwise the great Roth here is in the great form of an enigmatic Englishman and a completely phlegmatic character who both looks and acts as if everything is equal to him. As if he is absolutely not interested in anything and can’t get out of the rut and who seems to be literally dragging himself through the film and the whole story, and whatever happens, it doesn’t concern him. He’s just still in shorts and a T-shirt, borolets on his feet and a dull smile on his face and he seems like a completely empty guy who would most like to be left alone in his emptiness and nothingness for as long as possible.
Just like in “Nuevo Orden”, a great provocation, Franco in “Sundown” occasionally leaves some traces from which we slowly assemble a mosaic of who Neil really is and what led to his behavior. Whether he decided to take advantage of this absurd opportunity to escape from the old life, and as time passes, much becomes clearer, the story unfolds and a lot of things fall into place. And with this film, Franco showed that he is a master of provocation, an author who makes top films exactly in my style, twisted, completely unexpected. A subversive who seems to enjoy breaking down social conventions, taboos, and squeezing meaning out of everything we usually like to think makes sense. Rating 8/10.
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