LEAP YEAR

Laura’s life is beyond bleak. To try to escape her unspoken troubled past she moves from her family home deep in the countryside to her own somewhat desolate apartment in Mexico City.  Desperately lonely and completely friendless and working as a journalist from home, her whole life is defined by the four walls which confine her and in which the whole movie takes place.  In daily phone conversations with her mother and brother she lies big time and creates a completely imaginary life full of friends, and the only time she has any emotional contact at all is on the rare occasion when the brother comes to town to visit.

Despite Laura being the central role of this achingly depressing drama, we never really get to know that much about  what makes her tick.   A couple of times a week she dresses herself up and goes out partying and inevitably brings back another stranger who uses her to have unfulfilling anonymous sex (‘why do all you men keep asking if I came?’).  Then on one of these occasions she meets Arturo who slaps her around a little during intercourse.  Despite the fact that Laura initially shows no interest in him, he keeps coming back for more, and on each occasion the sex gets rougher until it develops into full blown S & M.

Meanwhile the Magazine she writes for has laid her off and she is also fast approaching the 4th anniversary of her fathers death, so her overwhelming depression gives way to suicidal tendencies, and she actively encourages Arturo to actually kill her in a very gruesome way as he makes love to her.  

It has the most explicit and roughest sex that any movie that got a mainstream release  ever had (in Europe naturally), but even that is really overshadowed by the intensely tragic life that Laura has.

The whole experience of watching this movie left me completely drained and mentally exhausted.   I was totally disconcerted, and my immediate reaction was a combination of both shock and horror. However, in sitting down to write this I realize that beyond all of that, the crux of this thought-provoking movie that really touched me was its  powerful indictment of loneliess.  

Be warned, this is not for everyone, but I am more than happy to recommend it to anyone who really wants to be shaken up.  

P.S. The movie all happens over one month finishing on February 29th

PPS I’ve discovered that the Director is an Australian man which for some reason I find odd given the subject matter!