When we held VHS Tracking – Live for the Blue Room Winter Nights, one of my questions to the panellists was “What movie would you use to vet the people in your life?” One of artist Nathan Beard’s choices was The Untamed (2016; La región salvaje) which he described as a “horny movie” and one that would truly be a litmus test as a movie recommendation. Thanks to SBS OnDemand, I was able to finally see what Nathan was talking about, and the film was both what I expected but also completely different to what I anticipated, particularly since all I really knew about it was that there was an alien tentacle or something that people had sex with. Much like other auteurs who take a grounded approach to horror/sci-fi terrain (Cronenberg, Glazer, Von Trier), director-writer Amat Escalante establishes an eerie tone with mysterious images right from the start, but the film more or less focuses on the tensions across an unhappy marriage. Alejandra (Ruth Ramos) is the stressed mother of two children who has a macho husband Angel (Jesús Meza) that cheats on her. Then there is the haunted Veronica (Simone Bucio) trying to get over her time with a mysterious entity in a cabin out in the countryside and starts getting to know Alejandra’s brother who is a nurse, Fabian (Eden Villavicencio). How all of this interconnects and touches on aspects of class, gender and sexuality in Mexican culture is doled out patiently and slowly with sensuous force and anxious anticipation. The Untamed is great, and even by the end, leaves much unsaid to ruminate over even as it produces images you can’t believe you’ve seen. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 