MQFF NOTES: Hidden Away (2014, Dir. Mikel Rueda)

I'm willing to admit that marked similarities between Hidden Away (a.k.a. A escondidas) and Sébastien Lifshitz's Come Undone (a.k.a. Presque rien a.k.a. the best queer film ever made) had me falling for Mikel Rueda's film quickly and hard. I'll also put it out there that if Rueda had released this twenty or so years ago, it would almost definitely now hold a similar stranglehold on my heart.

Maybe I have a thing for doomed first love. Or maybe, I'm just easily taken by queer cinema that dares do more with the electricity of its preternaturally handsome leads than dropping them in a linear three-act romance with social hiccough and a happy ending.

Rueda trades Lifshitz's depression sparked back-and-forth structure with the disorienting chop and change circularity brought into vogue by Alejandro González Iñárritu and his one time collaborator, screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. Impressively, in coupling this form of ostensibly haphazard editing with a burgeoning romance (a relationship that relies on a gentle build of attraction and trust) Rueda wrests the conceit from the depressive workhouse of Iñárritu and gives it hypnotic purpose.

Setting aside some of the more jarring issues with its introduction (there's an early cut that feels very much like a reel has been dropped) and the fact that Rueda reverts to a more traditional approach to close out his final act, Hidden Away proves the structure can be more than a means to build false tension to an uninspired narrative.

Rueda's character driven drama finds Ibrahim, a shy, 14 year old Moroccan refugee played by teenage man-mountain Adil Koukouh, falling in with Rafa, a young working class bilbaíno, played by Germán Alcarazu. Amidst multiple obstacles (immigration officials, street crime, racism and general testosterone-fuelled rivalry) the two boys meet and bond, barely understanding their connection. The film’s erratic organisation sinks us deep into the boys’ emotional confusion so that we’re left second guessing feelings just as they are. It’s an intoxicating mix of excitement, danger and heady pheromones, as dizzying as first love.

In this it is also surprisingly innocent. Rueda cares more about depth of representation than he does in surface level eye candy. Hidden Away brings Bilbao’s urban community to life. It pulses, sometimes with the youthful immediacy of Larry Clark’s Kids, other times with the breathless desperation of social injustice. Every corner of this film is stocked with life, to the point that there are many characters you’d happily follow out of frame - Rafa’s best friend Guille, played by Joseba Ugalde, who delivers a knockout goodbye scene, stands tall amongst them.

My one complaint is Rueda’s perplexing use of songs. Time and again, the film’s most touching moments are smothered in boner-killing guitar strumming sup-pop numbers that throttle the tenderness from the screen. What’s more, they return repeatedly, as if Rueda is determined to kick any remnant of sexual momentum from his most crucial moments.

Thankfully, Rueda has Koukouh and Alcarazu to save his bacon. To be blunt, their asphyxiating stares would jolt anything back to life.

Hidden Away deserves to be seen, and widely. It is a vibrant gem of a film. I can only hope that some kid today picks this one up and watches it to death, drenches his optimistic romanticism in its sexual tensions, and pines openly for a reunion that will never be seen.

This can be their Presque rien.

It is a worthwhile successor.

★★★★

Trailer:

Hidden Away screened as part of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.