Rating:  

Starring: Monica del Carmen, Gustavo Sanchez Parra, Marco Zapata, Jaime Serra, Diego Chas, Armando Hernandez.
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Director: Michael Rowe
Rating: Unrated (equivalent of a likely NC-17)
Running Time: 94 Minutes
Release Date: June 24, 2011
Home Video Release Date: October 11, 2011
Box Office: $13 Thousand
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Machete Productions, Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia, and Strand Releasing.

Written by: Lucia Carreras and Michael Rowe.

Directed by newcomer Michael Rowe, “Leap Year” is a challenging film and defiantly uneasy to watch. And yet as provocative and wincing as it may be, it is undeniably impressive all the same. Rowe delivers a bold and audacious first film which arrived to art-house theaters in the Summer of 2011, fresh from winning the 2010 Camera D’or prize at the Cannes Film Festival; a prize given to the best new filmmaker of the Festival.

Fearlessness lies at the heart of “Leap Year” both in the story depicted on screen and the textured approach to telling that story. Monica del Carmen, who had a small part in the Oscar-nominated “Babel”, leaves everything on screen here as Laura Lopez, a freelance journalist who lives in a tiny, rundown one-bedroom house and is desperate for a man to be in her life. The initial impression we have is that Laura is lonely and is hoping that her succession of one-night stands will turn into something more. Soon, however, we learn that she is seeking a companion for a completely unforeseeable reason and Laura’s peculiar fixation on the date of February 29 plays a key role in finding the right man to satiate her desires and perhaps deliver something more shocking.

I’ll not say much more.

Save one opening scene at a grocery store, Rowe frames the film in the necessary claustrophobia of bedroom, living room, and bathroom. Laura goes out to a club, but we only see the aftereffects with the men she brings home. She spies, with carnal intentions, her neighbors across the way, peering through a curtain hiding an ant-infested window. When she meets and has a sexual encounter with Arturo (Gustavo Sanchez Parra), for the first time Laura is forced to make small talk with her “date”. Arturo is different. He is not in a hurry to leave, not immediately ashamed of the tryst, nor does he appear to have anyone else to call and lie to. He stays. And for Laura, she becomes an all too willing moth to his brightly flickering flame.

Where “Leap Year” will lose a number of interested viewers comes in Laura’s ongoing and increasingly intense and jarring encounters with Arturo. Arturo likes things, shall we say, a bit more rough, and each time together, he escalates their encounters, ultimately to the point of degradation. But as much as Arturo pushes Laura, she is game and willing, and no matter what occurs between them, a post-coital cuddle on the couch becomes the norm with smiles and contentment all around.

Graphic and frank in its depiction of sexual behaviors and the tense and unflinching depiction of these seemingly consensual acts, “Leap Year” carries a very limited appeal for most, if not all, mainstream viewers. I was never at ease with what was transpiring on screen, nor was I applauding the increasingly discomforting things I was seeing unfold before me. However, as more intense interactions transpired on screen, the film did start to resonate with me when I thought of the suffocation of loneliness that causes some folks to go to some rather dark places in order to ease that unpleasant pain in their lives.

For Arturo, he may have underestimated his lover and where her boundaries truly lie, as well as the places she willingly wants to go with him. But where Michael Rowe’s film truly crawls under your skin emanates from the realization that no matter how outlandish or untoward Laura and Arturo’s lovemaking may become, or Laura’s behaviors seem to be, she simply cannot be alone. In an instant gratification world, people are flat out desperate for attention, companionship, and that desire to be loved, accepted, or even tolerated can reach an uneasy place where there are simply no more boundaries. Laura is running from something awful which has embedded in her psyche. And by the time this particular February 29 rolls around and Laura has run out of X’s to mark on her calendar, the tension, the unnerving situation that Laura and Arturo find themselves in, is almost too much to watch play out on screen.

I have no earthly idea who I would ever recommend “Leap Year” to. Sure, I can think of some critic friends and film writers who would perhaps take a gander at the film, but this will not play comfortably at all with virtually I know at all. And yet, recognizing that virtually no one near me will watch this film, and at the risk of being judged for praising such a visceral work, I can still unequivocally state that “Leap Year” is one distressing, agitating, and frightening descent down the rabbit hole of loneliness, and a brave, bold and uncompromising film I will not soon forget.

Should I See It?

YES

Art-house fans and those who crave new voices and fearlessness in their cinematic choices will have a lot of grist for the mill here. This is a bold and challenging work that will leave people cringing and perhaps completely captivated at the same time.

Whether you find this deplorable or not, there is something to be said for the raw and unrestrained performance from Monica del Carmen here.

NO

If you do not like challenging, aggressively frank and adult independent films, I urge you to not watch this film. The film is uncompromised, raw, and exposes the darker side of human desires and runs the risk of offending anyone not prepared for what it offers. Several scenes in this film may eventually be an affront to what you can handle, so if you pony up the courage to watch this, you’ve been warned.

The explicit, adult sexual content will simply always serve as offensive to some viewers, no matter the context.