ROTTING IN THE SUN - Mark Reviews Movies

Rotting in the Sun, Mubi

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 7, 2023

Independent filmmaker Sebastián Silva plays independent filmmaker Sebastián Silva in the co-writer/director's Rotting in the Sun, a daring piece of comedic self-critique that twists in ways we don't see coming and transforms into something of a guilt-laden, existentialist thriller. It often shocks—never more so than when the film reveals what the title actually means—but gradually evolves, leaving us with a rumination of the absurdity and sorrow of life.

It's heady stuff, but Silva and co-screenwriter Pedro Peirano seem to be having fun in presenting it. That mood begins with the introduction of Silva's character. The character is a version of himself, of course, living and barely working in an apartment building under construction in Mexico City. This Sebastián is starting to become convinced that he has nothing left to offer on a creative and that whatever he might have left in him wouldn't lead to the kind of success he wants.

There are two ways to look at this character: Either he's depressed, on account of the state of his personal life and career or some psychological issue, or he's a blatant narcissist, convinced that his problems have nothing to do with and that it's everyone else who's wrong. There's enough evidence here for either conclusion to be drawn, but it's probably best not to become too caught up in any kind of armchair psychoanalysis about the guy for a couple reasons. First, Silva throws it all out there for us to see, and he must know that playing a variation of himself will lead to the audience wondering how much of this fictional version is accurate and how much it is just imagination.

Second, well, this isn't necessarily Sebastián's story, even if it revolves around him entirely and without any layer of doubt. Yes, that's a contradiction, and yes, that's why playing therapist might still be an appealing idea throughout the film—especially when it decidedly stops being Sebastián's tale.

That's enough teasing—for now, at least. Sebastián is in Mexico City, frustrated that any project he might have in mind or could be offered to him is hitting a dead end. He's currently making paintings, most of them suggestive and all of them accidentally ruined by his maid Vero (Catalina Saavedra)—just before a journalist and a photographer arrive to talk to Sebastián about and take picture of his recent artistic work. Nothing is working out for Sebastián, so at the suggestion of his friend and the owner of the apartment building Mateo (Mateo Riestra), the struggling filmmaker heads to a local gay beach, where the buddy hopes his friend will get out of his funk by having at least some sex.

He doesn't, of course, as Sebastián, surrounded by naked men and various sexual escapades, instead mopes around with a sad-sounding book, avoids talking to anybody, and almost drowns, ironically, trying to save a drowning man. He's Jordan Firstman, a social-media influencer played by—as you probably have guessed at this point—real-life social-media influencer Jordan Firstman. Jordan just watched one of Sebastián's movies, and here the filmmaker is, just as Jordan is preparing to make a TV show loosely based on his own life.

This story is funny, awkward, and filled with bare self-loathing, as Sebastián starts looking into an animal euthanasia drug that's a common means of tourist suicide in Mexico, or self-indulgent vanity, as Sebastián makes a big deal that he's looking for the drug to just about everyone he knows. The film probes and prods this version of the filmmaker with such precision that one starts to hope the real Silva is doing okay.

Then, the film throws us its big shock and centerpiece punch line—an act of complete randomness and narrative trickery that should not be revealed. Suddenly, Sebastián is absent from his own story. We know to where he has gone, and so, too, does Vero, who can't tell Mateo or Jordan or anyone else.

The rest of the story becomes three different things, depending upon whose perspective we consider at any given moment. For Vero, it's a thriller, because she has to keep this secret, while the answer is right there for anyone with enough curiosity and the right items to see, and juggle the requirements of her job, as well as her personal life, in the process of doing so.

For Mateo and Jordan, it becomes a mystery, because both men want to find Sebastián and have no idea to where he might have gone. Mateo has his suspicions, which lead him to try to cover up some things he might have said or done out of guilt and fear, and Jordan has a crisis of conscience about his own career, because maybe it is just as a shallow and meaningless as this filmmaker, whose words he respects even more now, had said.

Since the character no longer plays a part in this story, is it possible to say that Sebastián has a perspective here? Well, it definitely has Silva's point of view of this fictional version of himself and how these other characters react to his unexpected disappearance.

Once again, we can look at the motive for imagining such a scenario in at least those two different and aforementioned ways, but what's fascinating is a pointed dichotomy: how much Sebastián's absence affects these characters' moods and actions in the short term, while not meaning much of anything in a practical way by the end of the twisty story of Rotting in the Sun. It's ironic in an equally funny and bleak way.

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