En la cama (In Bed)
May 2008 Reviewed by: Charlotte Meyer Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

The critics have been hard on it, even though En la cama has won its share of festival prizes and an Oscar nomination for best foreign film of 2007. One of the main complaints is that it is too reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s 1995 Before Sunrise and not as good. Both movies tell the story of one-day romances, beautiful young strangers meeting by chance, almost falling in love, and moving on. But the comparison is confusing: Before Sunrise would be suitable for your teenage daughter, while En la cama is full of nudity and very real sex. It opens with lots of quick ambiguous cuts of the curves and folds of restless naked flesh and the audio of a man and a woman very close to climax. Their urgency tells you that this sex is illicit. Daniela (Blanca Lewin) and Bruno (Gonzalo Valenzuela) have met by chance at a party in Santiago and end up in a motel. The couple in Before Sunrise wanders all over Vienna, but Daniela and Bruno never leave their room.

It was the recent hit Knocked Up that came to mind for me, another movie about a one-night stand. The couple in Knocked Up is so drunk that come morning they can hardly remember what happened. But in En la cama the couple is clearheaded and deliberate, and therefore much more erotic. Between the sex, and they have it several times, they converse. First of all, lying there exhausted and sweaty, they learn each other’s names. Their conversation (scripted by Julio Rojas) meanders over topics that are safe and trivial yet charged by their being complete strangers naked together in bed. Like a helix, the conversation curves into their personal lives with more and more intimacy until they have revealed their deepest, saddest secrets to one another. Their embraces change from sexuality to tender mutual consolation. They can be secure sharing their secrets because they’ll never meet again, like blind men on the street who are said to have terrible confessions poured into their ears by passing strangers. But there is more to it than that. Sex is communication, and when shared with full consciousness and trust, it can be profound. Their intense sex and their difficult self-revelations become one seamless intimacy. Alas, they would have been good for each other, this pair of strangers.

The film is a Chilean-German co-production. The video is not particularly sharp, there are small problems with continuity of image, and sometimes the random use of split screen seems meaningless. The sound is mostly devoted to dialogue; although in subtitled Spanish, it seems clear enough. The lovely score often creates or changes the mood, with original songs by Emmanuel del Real. The extras, although uneven, are plentiful. They include interviews, an award ceremony, a photo montage, rehearsal sessions, deleted scenes, a short film by Matías Bize, and trailers. The rehearsal scenes are a little jarring: the set was really just a single room, and we see the crew with their handheld cameras and sound equipment all crowded around, just inches from the bed where all that sexual intimacy was played out.

In fact, that’s just where we viewers are too. Soft porn, the critics have labeled it, but I see much more to it than that.

• Go Back