Post Tenebras Lux by Carlos Reygadas

Last night I watched a movie from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas called Post Tenebras Lux. It was terrifying and very difficult to watch for me. However,  I think that was the desired effect.

From a visual standpoint, the film was wonderfully imaginative. Reygadas' use of a custom lens creates a circular double-image around the edge of the focused area. This was what originally drew me to this film. The dreamlike quality of the images that he gifted the viewer is unparalleled. I've never seen anything like it before. I really liked this technique, and I would like to find a way to use something similar to it in my own films.

 From what I could gather, the film did have a sort of central story, but there were many other impressions and off-stories that Reygadas included. I think he did this in order to make the viewing experience something unique and particular to each person. The story had a sort of make-what-you-want-of-it feeling, which I like. In theory.
The problem with this film for me was that it changed too often to give me any impression of what was real or relevant to the story. Some scenes seemed totally useless or out of place. Others seemed like they should have had more emphasis placed on them. Again, this could have been a creative decision of on the director's part.
One thing that really stood out to me was that my physical body was brought into the viewing experience at the end of the movie. Siete ends up killing himself in some gruesome way that I only half-watched, half-hid from. It involved the loss of his head. This caused so much sympathetic pain to my throat and my chest that I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. No oxygen, no way to breathe. The next scene shows a rugby team of young and boisterous boys, seemingly in a completely different world, and definitely in a different, English-speaking country. Their skin is pink from the chilly and frosty air, their eyes are runny from the wet drizzle, and they are all breathing hard and fast, like animals, from the exertion of their bodies in the sport. Their difficulty breathing was a shared experience for me. No oxygen, no way to breathe. The parallel between me and the boys on the screen was something I was excited and inspired by. It seemed like Reygadas had thought this through. He knew I would feel this way.
Overall, I enjoyed the film's images and ideas. I am inspired, and that is something that I see as a gift from a movie. So... thank you Carlos Reygadas, for making me feel uncomfortable!