[TrueFaith77]

54-1/2. Dos entre muchos (Julian Hernandez); grade: A+

Julian Hernandez is one of only two great new filmmakers in the 21st century (Zack Snyder is the other, fyi). Hernandez and Snyder share, along with formal innovation and an operatic sense of Myth, the sensuality that evokes spiritual states comparable only to Sternberg and Bertolucci. Covidpocalypse provides the context for Hernandez’s erotic technique to take a radical stance against isolation in a new short film, translated as Two Among Many. Two long-distance lovers (Esteban Caicedo as a musician and Alan Ramirez as a dancer) improvise means of communication and intimacy when separated by Covid strictures (and other disasters). They use modern technology to collaborate on a dance piece and eat dinner together over FaceTime (and feed a pet fish). Hernandez makes palpable their longing in the most powerful love scene since his own Raging Sun, Raging Sky—that was set to Jose Jose’s “Cada Mañana”; this one is the finale of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea—both enrapturing. Cinematographer Chak Perez Pena lets the sunshine in at day-time and aims his keylight at night, both to sculptural effect—it’s the most beautiful movie of the year. Later, when, like the time-jumping tracking camera mise-en-scene Hernandez originated in Broken Sky, Ramirez takes new positions with each camera setup, the filmmakers already illuminated the space with meaning (and expanded the significance of Covid to gay men's AIDS-era confrontation with mortality). The song Caicedo prepares—“Is It Okay if I Call You Mine?” from Fame—provides accompaniment to Ramirez's final rooftop dance. Hernandez infuses the sequence with such heartbreak and hope that it reveals his unique, as-yet-unfulfilled potential to restore the musical form after Fame commenced the genre's 40-year demise.