En Tu Ausencia - In Your Absence
I have been to Southern Spain in 2008. I had a tremendous appreciation to the areas away from the cities and large towns. People there were very friendly in Sevilla. The region boats some of the most beautiful countryside in the Mediterranean. That whole atmosphere brings me back to the coming-of-age master piece En Tu Ausencia. The Spanish movie about Pablo the main character, a role perfomed by Gonzalo Sanchez Salas. In fact, Pablo bears a passing resemblance to any boy here in the Tunisian countryside both physically and emotionally. They are both strangely resilient no matter what they had experienced. However, the protagonist here who is a 13-year-old boy Pablo happens to be a little bit different because he clearly feels swamped by guilt about what happened to his dad. The father’s death left him with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Pablo thinks he is totally responsible for the ladder accident. Pablo wants to have a dad instead of the lost one and that’s why he trusted the stranger man not caring for any certain risks involved. The stranger man in return happens to be Pablo’s friend who has just come over on a visit and then the intensive relationship between the young teen boy and the stranger guy. Things started great firstly and Pablo seemed to have found the new dad he has always wanted. Paco Likes Pablo in return and that was obviously manifested through their firm hugs and warm smiles. This fact had affected Pablo’s relationship with Julia, an older teen girl who feels lonely and extremely bored in a place which is not interesting at all. An atmosphere which makes her totally dissatisfied and impatient. She suddenly dislikes Pablo and become slightly angry but the young boy did not expect such behaviour of obvious jealosy. She describes him to be in a gay relationship with his new lover. En Tu Ausencia has been a subject of great controvercy between America and the rest of the world, which is something very common in the history of film making. The movie is largely appreciated in Europe, Latin America and Asia but ,of course, Northen America has its usual disagreements and views of moral issues especially those related to coming-of-age films. Noel’s film contains nude scenes and other scenes involving boys puberty behaviour. This nudity material is considered normal and even noble in most countries especially Western Europe and South America. It depicts the very development behaviour of young teen adolescent boys going through physical and emotional changes in their lives. Clearly a healthy manifestation of the human behavioural problems. I hope American critics are familiar with the term behaviourism. Thus dealing with nudism scenes in cinema should be more appreciated but this does not mean that such movies scenes should never be open to criticism or doubt. Things can be only be judged in reasonable ways.
