Search - Quemar Las Naves (Burn The Bridges) on DVD

A Family

Amos Lassen | Little Rock, Arkansas | 02/24/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Quemar Las Naves" ("Burn the Bridges")

A Family

Amos Lassen

Francisco Franco's "Quemar Las Naves" looks at a family of three: Eugenia (Claudette Maille), the mother, a former pop singer dying of cancer, Helena (Irene Azuela), her 19 year old daughter who wants to travel the world and become a singer like her mother and Sebastian (Angel Onesimo Nevares) who studies and plays classical music and has the desire to do little more than to move to the beach. The three are stuck somewhere between desire, death and dreams of the future.
Sebastian and Helena develop a special love for each other as they care for their dying mother yet Sebastian also feels sexually drawn to a boy at school. There is tension as well between brother and sister since Helena stays at home caring for her mother while Sebastian can go where he wants and even find a human connection away from home. In this case it is with Juan, the new boy at school. Helena becomes jealous and things at home explode after the death of Eugenia and the future of the family house becomes uncertain.
Into the picture comes Ismael with his repressed desire for Sebastian and Aurora who rents a room in the house. We are given a look at the strange nature of the family as well as the powerful position held by the youngest male and his yen for freedom in a place that is devoutly Catholic.
Every cliché in film appears here--incest, homosexuality, the broken family, abuse and death but Franco handles everything in a way so that it all appears brand new. The plot is not bogged down by these clichés because the performances are all so brilliant. The film glows with beauty and Azuela gives an Oscar worthy performance. This probably could have lapsed into black comedy; Franco guides his film to be a true highlight of Mexican cinema. Because we are never quite sure where the movie is going, we are interested throughout.
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