Gael García Bernal turns the duel into a parody

Let’s imagine a world in which our loved ones do not necessarily have to disappear from our lives just at the moment of their death. death because, thanks to revolutionary technology, and for a limited period of time, we have the possibility of insert your memories into another person’s body to be able to enjoy their presence a little more and have enough time to say goodbye as we did not have the opportunity to do at the time. That is the world in which the new feature film starring Gael Garcia Bernal‘Another End‘, and represents such a promising plot premise that the superficiality and meaninglessness of history built by the Italian director Piero Messina from it they are doubly exasperating.

At the beginning of the film, the character played by García Bernal is sad about the death of his girlfriend, to the point that he tries to commit suicide. This makes him the ideal client for the company that markets the scientific advance mentioned above and, therefore, we soon see him reviving his relationship with a woman whose body looks nothing like his girlfriend’s but who, at least for a few hours a day, it’s her. That this situation makes the boy lose his way even more is something that anyone can understand because, obviously, prolonging our relationship with the dead in that way is an aberration, but the film does not seem to be aware of it.

In fact, throughout his film ‘Another End’ he demonstrates that he is not aware of it or of almost anything, for several reasons. First, leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to explaining how this new technology works with a minimum of conviction, and in fact it becomes more and more absurd in that sense as it progresses; second, does not show signs of understanding the ethical dilemmas derived from it -Isn’t selling one’s body to provide solace to other people a form of prostitution?-; third, does not take advantage of its premise to explore issues such as the mechanisms of grief or the connection between body and soul. Instead, it simply pushes its protagonist into increasingly erratic behavior, en route to the kind of final plot twist that will make an entire audience burst into laughter. It’s certainly not the reaction Messina expected to cause in the viewer.

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