Hivos Tiger Awards Competition review - VIDEOPHILIA (AND OTHER VIRAL SYNDROMES) by Juan Daniel F. Molero

Sex, drugs and viral videos. Juan Daniel F. Molero takes us on a unique nightmarish trip in his film Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes), which had its world premiere in the Hivos Tiger Award competition of the 44th International Film Festival Rotterdam.
 
Juan Daniel F. Molero's film can quite honestly be described as a nightmarish trip, that draws inspiration from a youth culture restlessly seeking the next high, whether it comes from drugs, money, sex or viral videos. Its backbone narrative follows the stories of two characters, a boy and a girl who randomly meet up in a video chat and get off on watching each other getting off. Eventually, the two manage to hook up, but the lives they lead and the events that occur around this meeting is just as important as the gimmick of the simple narrative premise - in other words, the story neither ends nor starts there.
 
In order to achieve a whole representation of the first generation brought up by the internet and computer screens, Molero manages to squeeze the concept of modern existance by representing it in its gloriously restless entirety - including the compelling concept of the creation of one's identities in the face of other people, and in the face of the internet community. This inevitably leads to paranoia, sometimes drug fuelled. Other times it leads to madness, violence and deep sadness. 
Yet, there are a number of elements that make this film as powerful as one would hope for it to be. One of these is an accentuation of the dramatic aspects of the story through a fearless and sometimes eccentric use of sense of humour. Another comes from the creative process of Molero's who, for practical reasons, decided to pay little attention to continuity in order to also focus on a more organic structuring of his film that really comes out through the extremely creative post production process and allows the film to feel strangely and unsettlingly timeless - as if chronology in life was of little importance.
 
What is evident, however, is the stark contrast between the handheld realism of the cinematography, that adds realistic depth to Videophilia, with the purposefully placed graphics that recall buffering defects of videos streamed on the internet. These effects (or "defects", as Molero himself calls them) are often pushed too far, to extreme lengths, to the point where their purposeful imprefection and sheer madness become highly representative and reveal the filmmaker's own background in experimental filmmaking. Despete their eccentricities, however, they still feel rather fascinating and a particular scene where the leading young female character has a bad trip is particularly memorable.
 
As Videophilia progresses, it constantly ditches its more conventional and structure nature more prominently for a rather more cathartic look and texture. However, there is still time for spontanousness to be shown by the cast, especially admirable in the case of newcomer Muki Sabogal, who plays the role of the leading girl, perhaps the most complex and elaborate character and the role that required the most physicality in the film. It is her journey in the film that is the most engaging, it is her almost drastic split personalities that are the most intriguing and it is her personal goals that inevitably allow us to understand what it is like to be young in a world where frivolity, lust, materialism and - to quote the title - other viral syndromes that are the preferred tools employed to disguise the serious root problems that plague our society.