MQFF NOTES: You'll Never Be Alone (2016, Dir. Alex Anwandter)

There are a couple of pivotal scenes in Alex Anwandter’s You'll Never Be Alone (Nunca vas a estar solo). The first is the brutal assault of openly and outwardly gay dance student, Pablo (Andrew Bargsted), by three of his neighbours, one of them his secret lover. The other is a touching scene between a random doctor (Antonia Zegers) and Pablo’s father Juan (Sergio Hernández) as he wrestles with the traumatic after-effects of his son’s beating.

Each of these scenes twist what begins as a buoyant coming of age drama into homophobic horror then into to a gripping character study anchored in the violent dog eat dog social framework of modern Chile.

Anwandter keeps a strangle-tight grip on the material, extracting blood from Hernández’s stony central performance, weighted down by grief, financial destruction and the spectre of his own paternal distance. It is a gruelling watch, and not only for violence enacted on a boy so full of hope, happiness and potential (charismatically, if briefly, played by Bargsted). Surrounded by the muted colours of Santiago (shot with directness by Matías Illanes) and Antwandter’s own score, You'll Never Be Alone trips headfirst into Juan’s raging-under-the-surface turmoil to pragmatic but powerful effect.

Heartbreakingly, You'll Never Be Alone is based on actual events - an extended homophobic attack even more horrific than Anwandter presents here. An attack so horrific it let Chile to enact sweeping anti-discrimination legislation. If only cinematic fictions could have the same effect.

★★★★

Trailer:

You'll Never Be Alone screened as part of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2017. 

You can check out other films from the festival here.