• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Seventh Row

A place to think deeply about movies

  • Start here
  • eBooks
  • Podcasts
    • Seventh Row Podcast
    • 21st Folio
    • Seventh Row on other podcasts
  • Masterclasses
  • Merch
  • Join now!
Home / Essays / Film Reviews / TIFF 15: Minotauro has interesting ideas but overstays its welcome

Willow Maclay / August 30, 2015

TIFF 15: Minotauro has interesting ideas but overstays its welcome

Minotauro
Courtesy of TIFF.

Nicolás Pereda’s Minotauro sees its North American debut in the Wavelengths section at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. This nigh impenetrable avant-garde picture is a narcoleptic journey into the interior lives of three young adults (played by Pereda regulars Gabino Rodríguez, Luisa Pardo and Francisco Barreiro) as they sleep, dream, read, and interact with occasional visitors who take care of the residents of this Mexico City apartment.

Shot mostly in static long takes, Pereda’s lensing is a meticulous exercise in minimalism. The camera remains stationary during the majority of the run time. The camera movement is subtle, and the framing is delicate. The only major changes in the image occur when characters move or in the fade outs that transition into a new scene in a different room of their apartment.

Pereda’s idea of cinema is abstract, and Minotauro sometimes falls under the weight of repeated sequences of characters falling asleep in and around the apartment. But for the most part, he has a keen sense of projecting these bodies as interconnected that remains fascinating throughout. There’s something about these three characters that brings them together that isn’t easily identifiable due to the vague nature of how the narrative is presented.

As things progress, the three leads begin to become inseparable in their sleeping patterns. Daily habits of isolated reading become communal when they begin to read cryptic passages out loud to each other. Their relationship flourishes in one striking image near the close of the picture where the three residents of the apartment are unconscious once more, and Pereda presents their bodies as a tangled web of limbs as they sleep on top of one another. Here, the characters finally achieve some sense of unity; the mystery of their living situation feels more natural because their three bodies are conveyed as one whole.

Minotauro
Courtesy of TIFF.

A lot should be said of María Secco’s cinematography. It adds a great deal of weight to these otherwise stationary images. Secco’s work is the glue that holds the movie together. The images presented here carry an ethereal feeling evocative of the inbetween state of awake and rest. The feeling of sleep and the idea of dreaming is incredibly important to the tone Pereda wants to get across, and an image like the one of a person wrapped inside drapery with shimmering golden light behind him feel not of this world, but instead of a world of dreaming. The colour palette relies heavily on golds, browns and whites. This scheme is as minimal as Pereda’s camera movement, but Secco gets a lot of mileage out of these images. At its very best, it resembles the imagery present in the work of Carlos Reygadas.

The film’s stream of consciousness mode is not going to be for everyone. When it becomes as lethargic as the characters, towards the end, the ideas get repetitive. Ultimately, this repetition is what makes or breaks Pereda’s vision: viewers may find it either comatose or transcendent. Minotauro is stuck somewhere in the middle of these two descriptors, never really breaking its own formal rigour. Although there’s a lot to be admired here, like the stunning imagery, Pereda’s feature feels too wayward to leave any distinct imprint. Some impressive aspects don’t find their way into a cohesive whole. Too often, the entire project feels listless. Occasionally, Pereda’s vision finds clarity, like the convergence of the tenants’ relationship in the scene mentioned above, but the experience becomes wearying once you realize there will be few deviations from the specific, established rhythms of Minotauro.

Miniaturo screens with Night Without Distance on Sat., Sept. 12 at 10 p.m. at Jackman Hall (AGO) and Sun. Sept. 13 at 9:30 a.m. at Jackman Hall (AGO).

Tweet
Share26
Share
26 Shares

Filed Under: Canadian cinema, Essays, Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged With: Canadian cinema, Toronto International Film Festival

Willow Maclay

Willow Maclay is a freelance writer based in St. John's, Newfoundland. She has written for Cleo Journal, Movie Mezzanine, The Vulgar Cinema, and her own blog, Curtsies and Hand Grenades. She has been writing film reviews since she was 13 years old after discovering Rotten Tomatoes. Her biggest interests are how film, feminism, gender theory, and queer theory intersect within cinema. Her favourite movie is The Red Shoes.

Get personalized film recommendations

Discover your new favourite film.

Privacy and Cookies Policy

100% free. Unsubscribe any time.

« Older Post
Pericles, Prince and Tiresome at Stratford
Newer Post »
Coming-of-age in Ontario is messy in Sleeping Giant

Footer






Seventh Row

  • Log In
  • Film Adventurer Membership
  • Cinephile Membership
  • Merchandise
  • Institutional Subscriptions
  • Donate
  • Shop
  • About
  • Contact Us

Our Ebooks

  • In their own words: Fiction directors – an ebook on filmmaking
  • Roads to nowhere: Kelly Reichardt’s broken American dreams – an ebook to prepare you for First Cow
  • Portraits of Resistance: The Cinema of Céline Sciamma
  • Beyond Empowertainment: Feminist Horror and The Struggle for Female Agency
  • The 2019 Canadian Cinema Yearbook
  • Tour of Memories: on Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir
  • Peterloo in Process: A Mike Leigh collaboration
  • Leave No Trace
  • Lean on Pete
  • You Were Never Really Here
  • Call Me by Your Name

Browse

  • Start here
  • Directors We Love
  • Films We Love
  • Guide to Canadian film
  • World Cinema for Young Adults
  • Family Viewing Guide
  • Interview Index by Job Title
  • Interview Index by Last Name

Discover Great Films: Take a Challenge

  • Kelly Reichardt Challenge
  • Céline Sciamma challenge
  • Joanna Hogg Challenge
  • Canadian Cinema Challenge





Get personalized film recommendations

Discover your new favourite film.

Privacy and Cookies Policy

100% free. Unsubscribe any time.

Connect with us

  • Lockdown Film School
  • Events
  • Podcast
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Follow us on social media

Facebook

Like

Instagram

Follow

Twitter

Follow

© 2021 · Seventh Row &middot

  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • FAQ
  • Contribute
  • Contact