Potent and deliberately enigmatic, Michel Franco’ SUNDOWN doesn’t so much tell a story as put a mirror up to its audience. With a central character that never explains, only exists with his own imperturbable agenda, it is for us to project our own ideas onto him as we sort out the mysteries of his actions while being fed only piecemeal who he is.
That central character is Neil (Tim Roth), and he is introduced as he watches a haul of fish gasp for air. His expression is neutral, but somehow his face is not blank. It is a cipher, which is why when he walks away from his companions and his life back in England for a stay of indeterminate length in Acapulco, the story that unfolds around his decision is confoundingly tantalizing.
He is vacationing at a luxurious Mexican resort with Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and two teenagers (Albertine Kotting McMillan and Samuel Bottomley). They call Alice Mom, but any further familial assumptions are left for the viewer to infer. Thus does the film progress, as Alice receives the devastating news of her mother’s death back in London and the hurried trip home is stymied at the airport when Neil announces that he left his passport back at the hotel. Alice is lashes out as she is led away by her children to start their long journey home. Neil, however, is sanguine as he strolls from the airport with only his carry-on luggage. He takes the first taxi he sees not back to the 5-star resort, but rather to any hotel the driver recommends. It’s not exactly seedy, but it is near the beach, and without any qualms, Neil checks in.
Inventing a story about the passport being lost, Neil continues to put Alice off, leaving her to the funeral arrangements and settling a thorny estate. For his part, he goes to the beach every day, drinks a great deal of beer, and starts a romance with a local (Iazua Larios) that seems to have more genuine connection than anything we have seen before. Indeed, the language barrier here is an opportunity for a connection, at least for Neil, on a more intimate level that we have seen in the banal non-conversations he had with Alice and the children.
Is Neil merely shirking his responsibilities, or is he following his bliss, or is there something more at work here as he sits in the sun while ducking Alice’s phone calls? Franco gives us plenty of space to contemplate those motives and implications while slowly revealing bits of information that shift our perceptions. Beyond those motives and implications, the dark origins of great family fortunes, the inevitable consequences of imperialism, and the silent ennui of wealth are considered with dashes of magical realism and savage reality creating a tone poem of great beauty and refined artistry.
Roth, wandering contentedly through the bright Mexican sunlight and deliberately eschewing the trappings of the privilege afforded to him by virtue of his race, gender, and class is equal parts holy fool and maddening contrarian. This is a performance of subtlety and instinct, where Neil is the same from beginning to end, allowing the audience to change its paradigms and value judgements.
In a cinematic equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat, Neil is hero, villain, fool, or victim as layers of his story are peeled away, though he remains true to himself throughout. It’s only when we stop to examine that specific moment can any label be assigned, but time being a slippery commodity, those labels blur into one another. In the end, he is human, and if not content, at least resigned to be so.
SUNDOWN is an emotionally gripping film of powerful contradictions playing off one another in a haunting descant. It has the suspense of a thriller, and the soul of a heart sutra.
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