Spanish Film Week at Kyiv Cinema, circa April 5
Noting the movie I didn’t see. For the one I saw, see Installment 3½
Manny Face was doing a chick from one of the two Argentine Tango schools he goes to, when I got a call from Kyiv Unedited telling me I had to cover something from Spanish Film Week at Kyiv Cinema.
Manny Face stopped in mid-plunge and looked down at the soft-eyed woman under me, dripping sweat from my head on the tape covering her mouth. I was jackhammering her all weekend and lost track of time. Was it Friday; Sunday? But I was far from done and torn between coming and going – know what I mean? But I owed a duty to my art, which is what drives Manny Face on; everything else takes a back seat; so I kept going for another two hours, something like that, and then I stopped – because I had to; know what I mean?
I looked down at the girl. Of course she was crying. Because she didn’t want Manny Face to go. But I had to, sweetheart. Yeah, I had to. So I got dressed and talked to her softly, running my fingers through her hair, wiping away her tears with my jacket cuff, and I told her I’d only be a few hours. She was a good girl. She hadn’t eaten anything or gone to the bathroom. She knew she was lucky Manny Face chose her out of all the dames from the tango.
Seeing how she was tied with her arms up behind her head to the headboard of my bed, Manny Face almost didn’t go, it got me so worked up again. Parting is such sweet sorrow – know what I mean. But then I thought of the picture of her in my mind, all tied up like that in my bed, keeping Mr. Big Head up in my pants through the movie as I would sit in the theater watching the flick while thinking about it – Manny Face can do some different things at the same time.
I figured it was a pretty easy position for her to lie in and there’d be no damage to her circulation. A couple hours added to two days wasn’t a big deal. Her chest was heaving hard as I went through the door. That’s right, baby, you want Manny Face, and you know the waiting’s only going to make it better. That’s right, baby… that’s right…
When Manny Face got to Kyiv Cinema, he read the description of the movie he’d missed for the 5 o’clock showing, and when I compared that description to the movie I actually saw at the 7 o’clock showing, Manny Face just about regretted the two extra hours he put into making the two-backed beast; know what I mean? Manny Face is an actor, so he knows expressions like that from forgotten Elizabethan and Jacobin plays. Know what I mean?
The one Manny Face didn’t see sounded like a film after Manny Face’s own heart, based on the description.
“Mientras Duermes,” which has been translated into English as “Sleep Tight,” akin to the bidding, Sweet Dreams, with a sinister ring to it, is a 2011 film by director Jaume Balaguero. On the English-language movies website, Rotten Tomatoes, the film’s genres are listed as Mystery, Suspense, Horror. The Ukrainian translation of the film’s title seems to miss the mark, translating approximately from the Ukrainian back into English, as “Deep Sleep.”
Manny Face found what is apparently the film’s official blurb in English on Rotten Tomatoes, from which the Ukrainian description is an obvious translation, and so I reproduce it for you below, verbatim – know what I mean?:
“Toiling silently amongst the residents of an everyday Barcelona apartment building, doorman Cesar (Luis Tosar) harbors a dark secret: his sole desire in life is to make others unhappy. When he sets his sights on Clara (Marta Etura), one of his building’s cheeriest residents, his sick need blossoms into a full-fledged obsession. Embarking on a series of private and physical violations against Clara, Cesar becomes determined to ruin her life by any means.”
So Manny Face asks: What can be better than that?
Lesson: Sometimes you can miss something real good if you fuck too much.
Instead, Manny Face saw “Tambien La Lluvia,” translated into English as “Even the Rain,” and into Ukrainian as, “They Sell Even the Rain.”
But Manny Face tells you about it in the next half-installment of his Checkout journal.
Manny Face, April 14, 2013