martin-alejandro Review of No Autumn, No Spring

No Autumn, No Spring (2012)

Camera techniques good, acting descent, Plot...Disappointing

[2 June 2016]

It is good to see an Ecuadorian film trying to be known around to the world. The message that this film is trying to give is to how you can overcome the obstacle and how anyone could achieve happiness. The camera techniques and the shots are good while the acting is descent. The problem is the story and the ending. First problem is that too many stories happen so fast in the beginning that as a viewer it feels confusing as you don't know what is happening or what to follow. As the movie progresses the stories began to make more sense which gives you the illusion that at one point all of this stories will clash together and will make an impact to all the characters…it never happens. There is one story about two girls where the older one watches the young one in a voyeurism style. Then there is another story of the character Martin. There is another story of a student who can't compete with the system so he gives up. There is another story of a drug dealer. Oh yeah, and there is a story about a guy who wants to be free…and another story of a girl who is about to die…and etc. The point is that there is too many stories happening at once and in the end after watching for almost two hours long, they don't have an impact with each other. Once again it uses the same cheap exploitation style like any Latin American film in order to catch the attention of the viewers through the use of drugs, sex, violence, poverty and corruption. The ending felt too rushed and abrupt which gives me the sense that there was no more budget so they had to end it as quickly as possible. The solutions are way too easy to be solved that it felt like if you watched a two hour film of a person trying to open a door and in the final 5 minutes of the film, it was revealed that he had the key in his pocket the whole time and he was aware of that.