Hot take: Amar

'Amar' is a wonderful look at the agonies and ecstasies of first love and the illusions it comes with. Opening with a beautiful floodlit long shot of the two teenage lovers in their aunt's bedroom, we are introduced to the tenderness, purity and trust they share with each other. The camera captures their intimacy without exploiting the scene for scandalous effect. This very quality of tasteful restraint and knowing insight pervades the entire film. The director (Esteban Crespo) and writer (Mario Fernandez Alonso) are not so much interested in what is in the frame but what is outside it, not so much in the objective facts of the doubts and misunderstandings that inevitably creep into any relationship but how they are perceived by each of the young lovers.

The impetuousness of the female protagonist Laura (María Pedraza) and the insecure vulnerability of the male lead Carlos (Pol Monen) are portrayed with compassion and sympathy, so we never feel that one has betrayed the other, even when the characters experience it as such. At the same time, the writing carefully builds a world of drugs, casual sex, peer pressure, economic difficulties and complicated adult relationships around these two characters. The cinematography is masterful, going from clean, white light to neon and dark as the relationship deteriorates. The breathy sound design is unobtrusive and effective.

The two leads are ably supported by a fantastic supporting cast, in particular Laura's mother and her high school friends. Sex is viewed as both a vulgar, matter-of-fact thing by Laura's friends, and a complicated weapon of negotiation by her elders, which makes what she has with Carlos so precious. When they lose those rose-tinted eyes, the pure love and whispers of forever in a heart-breaking last scene which mirrors the opening sequence, you know they are changed but you also know that what they had was a very special thing that can't be replicated. Kudos to the makers for neither trivializing young love nor romanticizing it for cinematic effect. Welcome to real life.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 1h 45min

Year of release: 2017

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Hot take is a series in which I offer my first impressions of films from India and around the world.