Amor Eterno
Spain 2014
Written by Marçal Forés & Vicente de la Torre
Directed by Marçal Forés
Watched on 29.04.2015

When it comes to the /slash Filmfestival, I tend to not inform myself about the movies too much in advance, since I usually watch everything anyway. Thus, the only criteria is the showing time (sometimes, I might already have other plans; or the movie starts a little bit too late for my liking). Otherwise, I don’t really care that much. Which also means that as long as I haven’t heard of a film before (like “Lost River” and “The Guest”, for example) I usually go into the movies completely blind. I don’t watch any trailers, and I usually also don’t read the short synopses in the festival program. The major advantage of this is that I mostly go into those movies totally unprepared, and without any expectations. However, it also means that I occasionally run into a movie that’s not really my type, and that I might not have watched if I would have informed myself about it in advance.

Case in point: “Amor Eterno” by Marçal Forés (not to be confused with the movie “Endless Love” that also came out in 2014). There’s very little that I can concretely criticize. For example, the movie failed to make the teachers change of heart plausible to me. First, he shuns the student he slept with, saying that it was just for one night. And then, suddenly, he gets all jealous and obsessive like a love-stricken teen. I don’t know, I just didn’t get where that came from. Also, as soon as they showed the picture of the dead body that was found in the woods I had a strong guess as to where this was going – and in the end, I was proven right. I also found the movie to be quite confusing, especially in the beginning. I didn’t really know if it’s supposed to take place in the real world, or in some sort of fantasy land. The showdown didn’t really manage to grip me (which is true for the entire movie, unfortunately). And I thought that the musical numbers were quite weird and distracting. None of those are real deal breakers, though, and there were also a couple of things that I enjoyed. The sex scenes were very well shot, especially the first one in the car, which was shot without a (noticeable) cut. “Amor Eterno” also showed gay sex in a way that I haven’t quite seen it portrayed before, which was definitely interesting for me. The acting was great, too, especially by the two leads. And the movie is definitely very unique, and something that I haven’t seen before. Ultimately, though, it boils down to “Just not my kind of movie”. I simply couldn’t relate to any of the characters, and didn’t find my way into the movie. It just didn’t connect with me. Which obviously says nothing about how you will react to it, though, so if you find the synopsis promising, I suggest you simply give it a try.
4/10

IMDB