 Dir: Alberto Rodríguez, Spain, 2004, Spanish with subtitles, 86mins
Cast: Juan José Ballesta, Jesús Carroza
Tano (Bellesta) is in reform school, with nine months to go on his sentence. He’s granted 48 hours freedom so he can attend his brother’s wedding. He immediately hooks up with his best friend Richi (Carroza) and they run riot, drinking, smoking, taking drugs, stealing, and fighting. In between times, Tano hangs out with his girlfriend, squabbles with his brother, and talks to his grandmother.
The boys move in a male world on the cusp of adulthood. Their talk is sustained by a stream of sexual insults, usually involving references to sisters or mothers. Some of the most striking moments occur when the joke fails, when it’s taken as an insult or the target is an elder relative, unwilling to condone their behaviour by laughing at their big talk adolescent smuttiness. The boys can be savage to each other, humiliating the uncool member of the gang when he makes a bid for their approval, throwing umpteen bewildering questions at him. But when not bullying and away from the gang, Tano and Richi are extraordinarily tender. They are in continuous physical contact, their arms draped around each other as they walk in the street: it’s very Mediterranean. Their adoring looks are always broken with wrestling, as one, laughing, launches himself at the other. For all the violence and poverty that surround them, they exist in a fraternal idyll.
And these lingering looks give Tano much of his depth. His time with his girlfriend, who is from out of town and notch or two above him in the social scale, provide him moments of tranquillity, of hope perhaps. He gazes at her just as he gazes at Richi, and when the patience of his older brother and guardian finally breaks and he hits Tano, the gaze is almost the same, as he fights back tears. It’s unclear if Tano has been sensitised to the savagery of his life at the reformatory or whether love has taught him a little empathy, but it is clear that he is beginning to feel an outsider. He comes to disapprove of Richi’s untrammelled amorality and much of 7 Virgins examines the mental and psychological effort to remain part of the gang.
There seems little hope Tano will break the cycle. Violence is an endemic part of his life; adult vigilantes, armed with heavy sticks, are little more than grown-up versions of the boys; and at a time of great emotional stress, Tano commits an act of terrible brutality. The moment soon passes and he is arm in arm with Richi, united by the fact that they got away with it. The Truffautesque final scene is an uncertain as it should be.
Teenagers on the rampage are one of the most important subjects of the realist cinema of the early 21st century and 7 Virgins treads familiar territory. Nevertheless, Rodríguez has coaxed compelling central performances from his impressive young cast; the photography, soaked in the hot yellows of southern Spain, is beautiful; the Latin soundtrack cool; and for a genre that thrives on shock value, little here feels gratuitous. |
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