Movie review: Private Tropical 14 "Sunset Memories" (2004) (Cristina Fella, Cindy Hords, Alessia Pompei)
The opening credits, in black and white and with a soundtrack that invites pessimism, announce that we are going to witness a tragic piece with a bad ending. What starts badly ends badly, as the popular saying goes. The close-up takes us to the very Caribbean, to a beach in the north of the Dominican Republic, where a lonely young man named Steve meditates on his current situation.
Trailer de Private Tropical 14 Sunset Memories
Movie Sunset memories on Youtube
It all started when he had bedroom problems with his wife. Love relationships become complicated when an element such as sexual life fails and encounters in bed come to be overvalued due to the scarcity bias. If the wife is in need of these moments of intimacy, the risk of a breakup becomes real and the arguments continue day after day. Sex is life, and it is the fuel of a young and healthy couple, and it is the foundation of any relationship.
Dramatizing the thoughts of a tormented being
The man suffered a persistent impotence and could not meet his wife, which leads him to plunge into despair and sadness. She was still understanding, trying not to let her husband's sexual problem turn into an obsession. More, however, downplaying it did not help him in the slightest, because the situation had already lasted for more than half a year.
Not a trace of that sex of the beginning of the relationship...
"...the time of kisses and sweat, it's time to sleep..."
One night, at an informal dinner at the home of some close friends, they discussed the subject of impotence, and to Steve's surprise, his friends confessed that they also went through that stage and that a renowned urologist, Dr. Dämmern, He prescribed a stay in a community nestled in the Cabarete - Sosua region. There, all the guests practiced polyamory and this technique returned the fire in bed. For that reason, they recommend their friends to receive the same "Caribbean" treatment: a proven shock therapy.
Well endowed counselor
Budding interest face
In these dinners the most unsuspected topics come up
The worst holidays of his life
¿The good doctor?
Steve, prima facie, was not at all convinced with the treatment and until it was time to go to the airport, he trusted that his wife would forget about that business of "health tourism" in the Caribbean. However, nothing made him change his mind: the boss is in charge; and embarked on a journey to nowhere, albeit with a physical destination: Haciendas El Choco. The first rendez vous took place in a tribal-inspired house, decorated with indigenous touches and a huge garden.
The first meeting promises...
Photograph of the villa in which this scene is shot
Same villa in the web Ocean Side Realty
Look at the balcony...
The side of the house
This pirate takes stock of the situation, although without a cigarette in his hand
Complicit looks. Impotence overcome?
We will need more meetings...
That same night, the couple recovers energy on the couch. The use of lighting by Max Bellocchio stands out here, with a lot of plasticity and a play of light and shadow. Other great filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick or Ridley Scott have made magnificent use of light in their blockbusters, although with much more financial means, of course...
Lights and shadows
Let's pause to recap, because after the filler scene we're a bit confused. There are only two options, either the tropical treatment is miraculous or Steve's illness was a mere mental block. Steve is apparently fully cured. With the problem resolved, nothing prevents the couple from returning to Europe, but now there is a disagreement. His wife does not seem willing to return to the warmth of the home so soon.
At the dawn of civilization, impotence was seen as a curse that could only come from the gods, and the remedies in illo tempore were very varied. The beginnings of andrology go back to Ancient Egypt and on the banks of the Nile, the natural substance used against this ailment was honey. Surely the screenwriter of Memories of the Sunset decided for this reason that Steve would refer to his wife with the affectionate nickname of "Honey" (this is the case in the VO). Later, it evolved towards treatments with aphrodisiacs, among which it becomes necessary highlight the ground rhino horn, which favored more rigid erections. Impotence was a serious issue and the Catholic Church granted Catholic annulment for this reason, as it was an error that had vitiated consent, since the ability to procreate is an essential personal quality. Lucrezia Borgia requested the annulment of her nuptials with the noble Giovanni Sforza precisely because of the impotence he suffered. Already in the Modern Age, what was prescribed was a long period of sexual abstention. But all those antediluvian solutions were lost in time. Today, the solution involves an accurate diagnosis of what physiological or psychological problems cause it, although according to the scriptwriter, it can be solved with a trip to the heart of the Caribbean.
After this brief digression, we continue with the analysis of the plot, and we discover that the next scene moves away from the main story, and only shows us a polygamous encounter but, this time, in the swimming pool of the Villa Coco Mar, first line of the beach. It is a very visual way of exhibiting the wide and deviant roots professed by this shady libidinous cenacle permanently settled on the famous Spanish-speaking island.
This "corrupted" image could be a conceptual art sculpture exhibited at the Tate Modern in London...
The renovated pool today, in a picture in the web Dominican Expert
Story in social media Instagram 19-5-2023
We come back to Haciendas El Choco, and now we will witness the most numerous and multitudinous meeting, also next to a luxurious pond with whimsical shapes. It has always been said that the experiments with soda, or in a Petri Dish, but here Steve and his wife are putting their relationship at stake without having made a deep reflection about the ominous treatment prescribed by the urologist of Teutonic descent. The villa, with its hexagonal balconies in Bordeaux and its arches, is unmistakable, and its enormous garden stands out for its botanical variety. The guy in the red shirt sends his wife to the parking lot and plunges into a saturnalia of depravity and voyeurism. They are all very prolific and generous, always willing to please their guests.
An important scene in the movie
Complicity...
and boredom
We shipwrecked, once again, in remorse. After the hustle and bustle of the afternoon, the couple was enjoying, in apparent calm, a movie. A separation was already palpable, more and more intense, because each one occupied one of the armchairs in the living room. Physical contact had faded into the background. Steve asks her if she's enjoying the Caribbean experience, away from her home in Europe, and she says yes, adding that now it's his turn to go off with a solo woman.
For Steve this was a heartbreaking moment, because his matchmaker, perhaps testing him, or perhaps seeking the premature end of his marriage, was urging him to have sex with another girl. Steve had only been with her up to that point. In other words, this was going to be the first time with another female, in this case, Peter's wife. It was going one step further in treatment.
¡Happy you have me!
The flashbacks momentarily cease to return to the present, where Steve continues his flashback in complete solitude, sitting on a log. He is correct in saying that "he was not aware that he was losing his wife", as they met more and more bigardos. Such a bunch of satyrs suffering from priapism were not going to repair that expired nuptials. That taxonomy of men without the qualities of marriage counselors is the closest thing to throwing gasoline on the fire, when what we want is to put out the fire.
Dark times
That day marked a before and after, and they never copulated together again, although they continued to enjoy good white wine and each other's company, merely as friends. In this particular scene, they exchange information like colleagues in a two-week training course: How was the seafood platter? Do you like the beach atmosphere of the Caribbean? etc The answers… with monosyllables.
Last days of marriage...
At that moment, an uncomfortable moment like the brief company of a stranger in a hotel elevator, Ron called to invite him to his home, the Hacienda del Rey, once again located in the Haciendas El Choco. Steve proposed to his wife to accompany him to Peter's house, but she refused. So Steve left alone the next day to spend some quality time with Ron and his blonde consort in the villa's pool. It seemed as if she would rather be alone than accompany her husband. A macabre joke for Steve...
The telephone Tinder of the beginning of the century
This plane looks like an advertisement for hyaluronic acid injections broadcast on the local TV
Pool of Hacienda del Rey, in Haciendas el Choco
Hacienda del Rey: cadastral reference 18 in Haciendas El Choco
Site if the villa in web Olimare
More photos of the mansion in Coral Bay Real Estate
Google Maps photo of Hacienda del Rey
In reality, she was already socializing with a young man who was also staying at that pernicious resort where everyone practices a phatological barraganery. Due to this, the pressure, the insistence and the closure that her husband attended all the "therapy sessions" had a reason for being. She wanted time "free from her husband" to be able to celebrate freely with that boy who had already stolen her heart in Dominican lands.
Beach love over the sand
The morning before the return flight, Steve woke up with a start to find his wife no longer in bed. He approached the window of her hotel suite and watched her flee with that young man in a metallic dark gray Mitsubishi Carisma (5-door hatchback of the 1995 design). His wife, fascinated from the first moment with that trip recommended by her friends, forced Steve to buy the tickets and now she was abandoning him on the other side of the pond, in a cruel way and with a total lack of scruples.
Elusive
With premeditation
…anda alevosia
Eyes on the wall
Going away with a Mitsubishi Carisma metallic dark green of the nineties
Heartbroken...
The filmmaker recreates here the pain of an afflicted Steve, with close-ups in which you can feel how his soul breaks. A pain so great that Max prefers to express it with images and without too much verbalization.
The thinker continues on the beach, waiting to become a statue of salt and coral.
“Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.” John Milton, says William Sommerset, in Seven
No matter where she goes and for how long, Steve "will always be at home waiting for her...". Although, at this point of no return, it should be said that if Steve fulfills that extemporaneous promise, the female gender is going to lose a well-endowed boar that is now back to working at full capacity. The gold bachelor is back on the market and he has a lot of love to give away.
THE END
RATING: 1/10
Info:
Private Tropical 14 "Sunset Memories"
Year: 2004
Film genre of the plot: drama
Destination: Sosúa, República Dominicana
Actors: Cristina Fella, Philippe Bean, Claudia Lamborghini, Phil Holyshit, Kevin Thong, Cindy Hords, Francesco Sitcom, Donna Merry, Jessica Fay, George Bull, Alessia Pompei
Where can I find it: Private or Google
Enlace a la versión en español
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