(2025, 136 min)
Country: Mexico
Director: Julian Hernandez
Studio: Dark Star Pictures
Language: Spanish w/Subtitles
SYNOPSIS: Orlando and Marco (Luis Vegas and Axel Shuarma), two young men who live in Mexico City, meet by chance and fall in love. Every day they fight in order to achieve their dreams. Orlando wants to be a dancer and Marco wants to graduate from nursing school. Amid a diverse, ever-changing and hostile world, they know that once the darkness of night is gone, they will have seen all those demons of dawn go by. Demons at Dawn is an erotically charged, visually sumptuous and boldly provocative vision from master filmmaker Julian Hernandez (The Trace of Your Lips, Raging Sun, Raging Sky, A Thousand Clouds of Peace).
REVIEW:
The hustle and bustle of Mexico City can feel like the world's biggest playground, or a soul-sucking urban trap, in writer-director Julián Hernández's latest erotic odyssey. Orlando (Luis Vegas), a dance student with a high sex drive and a side gig as a go-go boy, locks eyes with nursing student Marco (Axel Shuarma) on his way to class, and both are instantly smitten.
Things move at warp speed for the lovebirds, as Orlando takes the plunge and moves into Marco's cozy flat. “I'll never stop loving you,” the gifted dancer tells Marco in the throes of passion. The new couple's honeymoon phase brings out Hernández's penchant for dreamlike imagery, and he intersperses these moments of bliss with more straightforward scenes showing the young men hard at work pursuing their chosen professions, including a subplot where Orlando auditions for a dance-themed reality series.
For roughly half the film, it appears as if Hernández has justified the film's 2-hour-and-15-minute runtime, but once the pressure from juggling a relationship with their busy schedules ramps up, Orlando and Marco's “amour fou” hits the skids, and that sends “Demons at Dawn” into a tailspin. The film begins to go in circles as these boyfriends try to convince themselves and each other that nothing is wrong, while Hernández hits the bad-vibes chords over and over. The moping becomes oppressive.
Is this a breakup in slow motion, or an extended rough patch? Orlando and Marco rush into a relationship without knowing much about each other beyond their sexual compatibility and how good it feels when they're together, but that also extends to the viewer. We know very little about these characters, so we end up not caring whether or not they manage to get back together.
Hernández, who's no stranger to OUTshine audiences, remains a stylish storyteller. Fluid camerawork and a bright color scheme keeps “Demons at Dawn” interesting from a visual point of view, but he's unable to prevent this overlong love story from becoming tedious. When the filmmaker inserts a musical number complete with bad lip syncing, it sticks out like a sore thumb because it feels like something from a completely different (and more fun) movie.
It becomes more and more difficult to tell whether something being depicted is happening in the characters' heads or whether it's happening for real, and as a result, the film's resolution feels so abstract that it fails to resonate. You feel the movie slipping from Hernández's fingers. We get it: Love hurts, especially when you're young, but the road for this couple is so prolonged and punishing that it ends in disappointment. For us, not them
Review by Ruben Rosario, Film Critic, Miami Artzine (https://www.miamiartzine.com/)
