| |
Disgraced director's film brings an elevated aesthetic to a contemporary tragedy of dark desires, but does it get the situation right? Manticore…? What is a manticore? One of these weird new music genres? Probably. But mainly it is a Persian creature characterised by having the tail of a scorpion, the body of a lion and the head of a human being. It is also the metaphor that Spanish director Carlos Vermut chose to represent the inner turmoil of Julián, the main character in Manticore (2022).
Manticore versus Head Burst
The film is reminiscent of Head Burst (2019). The similarities are many: the main characters are introverted young men with successful careers who each develop an infatuation with a young boy; they both try to conceal those feelings from others (and themselves) through a relationship with a woman; in both films temptations from sexually graphic material and sexual abuse are used as a narrative and thematic device; visual metaphors are used represent the dark secret in a palatable way; we see society’s unwillingness to explore these topics, etc.
There is, however, one main difference: Manticore is considerably better, both from a purely artistic perspective and in the way it contributes to the progress in film discourse about MAPs.
Artistically the film is much more intricately crafted. The frames are constructed with care and savoir-faire. For example, in one scene the main couple hugs and Diana, the young woman with whom Julián develops a relationship, is willingly engulfed by the darkness of his lover’s black t-shirt in a beautiful mixture of loving tenderness and prophesied misfortune.
In addition, the main character’s career—3D design for videogames—is employed much more effectively than in Head Burst, giving rise to a realm in which the main character visually represents his self-image by creating monsters (“your monsters seem very human, like they’re trying to hide something,” says Diana to Julián).
Regarding the narrative structure, it has been thoroughly planned: Julián’s destiny is mostly prefigured at the beginning, so the whole movie plays out as a contemporary Greek tragedy in which every later scene recalls an earlier one.
Thematically, Manticore is much more ambiguous, complex and narratively interesting. While we may begin assuming that Julián is the only one who hides a deep secret, we later discover that Diana spends her life taking care of his disabled father. At first that may seem a purely altruistic act, but the film suggests other darker undertones within the character that add layers of moral ambivalence.
The message is clear: sexual fetishes, kinks and paraphilias are much more common that we often want to acknowledge. Some are just less accepted than others.
Furthermore, a whole other level of discussion is present: the relationship of modern technologies, and the fictions that they enable us to produce, with the forbidden desires that lurk in our psyches. We observe Julián creating a 3D model of Cristian, the young boy for whom he has an infatuation, to later caress it. However, we only deduce these actions from the outside, as he moves across his living room holding the controllers (a visual decision that avoids unnecessary triggering of the audience and explores the ambiguous ethics of these new tools).
A difficult conclusion to swallow
I am conflicted about the climax. Julián’s secret has been revealed because of his digital naivete and he starts being rejected by the people he relied on until that moment without having really done any objective harm. He rushes to the house where Cristian lives and it turns out that his parents are not at home. The introverted and insecure character who moved house in order to distance himself from the boy now convinces him through the speaker to let him in. He then has the boy practise piano while he prepares a drink that will put him to sleep so he can abuse him.
The scene is intelligently solved without unnecessary morbidity, alluding to a previous scene and the name of the film. However, the events depicted are highly unlikely given the character this film has presented. I think I understand the intention of the writers: to disregard the simplistic but popular thesis that only psychopathic monsters commit these horrible acts. So they indicate that introverted and self-hating pedophiles are also able to commit them, and that they may do so when, for example, they have been unjustly rejected by society and no longer have anything to lose.
I appreciate the effort, yet I think they are mistaken. Although this kind of pedophile may be able to abuse a minor, a much more plausible path is the successive breach of self-imposed red lines by the pedophile, who never takes an active decision that will make them feel morally compromised but is seduced by the opportunities that arise from a situation in which they have chosen to be.
Regardless, the ending of the film wraps everything up quite nicely: Julián ends up disabled, unable to move or speak. The manticore has been neutralized. It is sadly ironic how at the beginning of the film an unwitting doctor tells Julián regarding his anxiety attacks that he has to talk about his problem. Now he will never be able to again.
Only now is he once again accepted and helped by society, silently aware of its responsibility in the whole ordeal. That this is through the consummation of another person’s fetish only adds to the irony. In the end however, society preserves its pretence of charity and virtue. That is what matters.
An unfortunate sequel
Unfortunately, art imitates life and life imitates art. Not much longer after the independent release of the film the director was accused by several anonymous women of sexual misbehaviour mostly related to nonconsensual BDSM. Although these accusations have yet to be tried formally, his career is over.
Was Carlos Vermut projecting his own sexual demons through those of the main character? Was he trying to expiate some unspeakable guilt? Whatever the case, the reaction from society has been as foretold by Manticore: pointing at the man in a communal celebration of its own moral purity, behind which often an unconfessed guilt can be hiding, a guilt that tries to redeem itself through another individual’s fall. Manticore shows us better: the seed of evil lies in each and every one of us, and only a society that is brave enough to openly discuss all of our shadows can act —before they become monsters.
| |
