Tenemos la carne (2016) Reviews

• No, I'm not prude. I'm genuinely disappointed.

  apm_bay2016-12-03

  ### Don't continue reading if you're easily upset. ### 'We Are The Flesh' is set in a post-apocalyptic setting. What kind of disaster has befallen earth this time we do not know; we do get to meet people who're walking disasters themselves, though. A man and his sister stumble across a vagabond living in an old ruin where he produces alcohol and follows crazy routines. He offers safe refuge on one condition: They must do as he says. Eventually, he even demands the siblings should have sex. When they comply, the vagabond dies from arousal, leaving them free to inhabit the ruin as they wish. At this point, however, they have already been consumed by his insanity… What is 'We Are The Flesh'? Over in the discussion forum someone asked other forumites whether they found this movie shocking or boring. In my opinion it's both shocking and boring, really. Shockingly boring, too. I had given this whatchamacallit a try because I like apocalyptic themes… even though I don't like the genre. I should've known better. I'll remove one [-1] in the end for I should've known better. About a quarter of an hour into the movie, all plot is thrown overboard here and repetitive metaphors are being injected into this flick like through a clap-stained junkie's syringe. Some people might want to sit down, interpret the images they've seen and maybe even come up with something; and by "some people" I mean those artsy cheerleaders who'd also pay one million bucks for a canvas splattered with feces because they somehow managed to read a life- changing metaphor into dog poo. 'We Are The Flesh' is just crazy. I'm actually sorry for the actors who don't look like they enjoyed themselves much, especially not during the explicit sex scenes. Those — like nearly everything else in the movie — just do not feel organic, by the way. They've been added for shock value obviously and nothing but shock value. Maybe the actors should've eaten the same mushrooms as the director? I must at least assume that the mind responsible for this movie was under influence of some intoxicating substance. For what else do we have? Rape, torture, explicit violence, sadism and urine- as well as menstruation-fetishism. Oh my. Please, someone tell those "visionary" movie makers: If you're unable to narrate the relationship between two protagonists without a minute-long closeup of some dude's stiff shaft, odds are you're utterly unable to achieve the same no matter how much explicit imagery you included. It's more likely you have just gone out of your league! Good God. I miss the days when they made subtle, intelligent movies which were confident that I would understand what was going on without hammering home a point that I had understood an hour ago. Movies where e.g. the director managed to transport the tragedy of a death without smearing brain fluid and skull fragments all over the camera lens; movies where it didn't take pornography to prove emotional attachment. [ At this point I must reiterate: It's not the explicit imagery which bothered me. 'Blue Is The Warmest Color' for example was a grand movie regardless of its many explicit sex scenes. There, they used to be warranted and had the merit of portraying a young woman's sexual liberation. They weren't voyeuristic. However, this movie's voyeurism is off the charts!] I'm sorry, but I don't really understand how 'We Are The Flesh' is supposed to be art. The word 'art' comes from Latin "ars", meaning "skilfulness". Screaming when whispering would suffice does not denote skills. Using an artist's means does not make anyone an artist. I was about to wonder why it is that these days we can't have anything in between Michael Bay and this Emiliano Rocha Minter anymore – but there is no meaningful distinction to set them apart. One uses a gigaton of fake explosives in order to create "suspense", the other uses a gigaton of actual ejaculate. It seems as though indie movies had become another shade of mainstream cinema while I was not paying attention.

• Go into this film with an open mind and appreciation of rarely explored themes.

  roarshack802017-01-03

  Never trust reviews from people who walk out of a movie. Reviews are opinions stressed by people who watched the whole film. When people write reviews of films they walked out of, that's not a review: it's an uninformed comment. This is as much as a review as it is an honest opinion by someone who watched the film in its entirety. Keeping in mind that great films shouldn't be loved by everyone. We Are the Flesh is a cinematic version of dark thoughts and ideas most people immediately remove from their train of thought. As long as you are human enough to understand what is right and wrong in reality, there isn't a single thing wrong with examining dark and even grim thoughts that every single human being has from time to time. This film explores those themes and presents them in ways that are meant to be hard to watch. These are themes that you normally wouldn't bring up in random conversations with random people. These are themes that aren't meant to be visited often but should be explored at least once. Just to see what they look like. Just to see what dark and grim things you otherwise would not have in your life (by choice) but are curious to see the repercussions from the vile acts that go on in dark places. For me, We Are the Flesh depicts a horrid version of common, hopeless and deprived humanity. It's a brief example of those dark things I never would allow myself to act upon physically or emotionally. But I find those areas of the unknown panning out visually stimulating. Afterward, I can walk away when the film ends satisfied for experiencing a story that made me think of things I don't want to think about. But I can leave those dark questions answered by putting them behind me and leaving them with this film. Which to me, makes for a wonderful and well made film.

• Awful, and pretentious as hell

  nihilnoctem2016-12-29

  Was there even a script for this film? It feels like a three-year-old's version of "shocking," when it's boring, pretentious, and so on. We're treated to a crazy homeless guy who lets a brother and sister squat with him, but in exchange, they must do whatever he wants. He wants incest, torture, and murder. In the hands of a better filmmaker, this might be something, but it's one of the worst films I've ever seen, and I rather enjoy bad movies --- the so bad they're good kind. It takes a hell of a lot to make me actively hate a film. The most astonishing thing about this movie is why so many film festivals saw it as "art" and choose to screen it.

• Odd, Disturbing and More

  gavin69422017-02-28

  After seemingly wandering a ruined city for years in search of food and shelter, two siblings find their way into one of the last remaining buildings. Inside, they find a man who will make them a dangerous offer to survive the outside world. For me, this film is all about the rich color of the cinematography (from Yollótl Alvarado), the depth of the sound (from Esteban Aldrete), and the overall atmosphere. I could have used a bit less dizzying camera movement, however, though it does have an underlying purpose. Whether you appreciate the plot and situations or not (and many will not), there is no denying the craft of the camera and sound. Variety noted that the film was an "extreme Mexican fiesta of incest, cannibalism and explicit sex that should earn detractors and fans in equal measure." Other reviewers have called it simultaneously boring and shocking. It really is all these things... some moments were too much for me to really enjoy the picture, as the shock factor seemed gratuitous -- unlike the extremes of "Visitor Q" or "Salo", which have a clear satirical purpose. Now, to be fair, "We Are the Flesh" does have its satirical moments. It has digs on "blind patriotism" and attacks the ritualism of religion, specifically Catholicism. As the film progresses, more of this is evident and we realize how much the social conventions and expectations are turned on their head. (Some of the most subtle moments are not even realized until we learn the "names" of the characters from the credits!) "We Are the Flesh" made quite the impact during 2016 on the festival circuit. I had my first opportunity to see it at Montreal's Fantasia. There was never any doubt that it would be picked up for distribution, though it comes as a surprise that the ones who came along were Arrow Video. Arrow is without question one of the best film distributors in existence, but their focus tends to be classic cult, not contemporary. Regardless, Arrow pulls all the stops with their Blu-ray. We have new interviews with the director and cast, as well as a highly enlightening visual essay from critic Virginie Sélavy, where she explains easily-overlooked symbolism and draws parallels to the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Perhaps best of all ,the disc has two other short films from director Emiliano Rocha Minter: "Dentro" and "Videohome", to really round out the experience.

• Maybe a little too artsy for me?

  subxerogravity2017-01-23

  Wish I could say it wasn't that bad, I like it, or rather parts of it. When I saw the poster at a local theater I was thinking this was going to be a Si-Fi horror film. Even the synopsis gave me this ideal, and it was horrifying but more in a human way rather than super natural. So two kids end up in a place were they meet a man whose out of his mind and the three have bizarre sexual encounters with one another. I did like the crazy dude in the film, he was disturbing in that horrific sort of way. Plus, I can't give a movie to low of a score considering it had so much awesome nudity and strong sexual content in it (Just being honesty). But what I was expecting from the small paragraph that help me get interested in seeing the movie was not what I ended up seeing. I felt the ad campaign was met to be a metaphor of something. We Are the Flesh is very similar to M. Night Shyamalan's the Village in that all it's not what it seems, but with far less story (Or no story at all cause I really have no idea what this movie is about or trying to say). When the movie starts and I realizes that it's a very small indi film in a foreign language I was expecting far more talking, but a lot of what I got was interpretive movement and in your face nudity (Which is where I think the actual name of the film was met to be about). So I'm into hard core sex in mainstream movies but whatever the filmmakers wanted me to feel by watching this experimental feature I did not feel (Unless they wanted me to feel horny).