Broken Sky

Don't be put off: Hernandez's exquisite romance works on an emotional, as well as intellectual, level.

Broken Sky is that increasing rarity, a film that is fully realized visually. Keeping dialogue at a minimum, Hernández and inspired cinematographer Alejandro Cantú create a constant interplay between light and shadow, movement and stillness, dramatic spaces of architectural grandeur and intimate enclosures to evoke the ever-shifting emotions of an all-consuming first love.

Mr. Hernández doesn't always grab what he's reaching for -- his talent soars untethered by discipline -- but the thrust of his effort lights up the sky.

Though the bold treatment of homoerotic love in Mexican helmer Julian Hernandez's feature bow Broken Sky is sure to grab attention, it doesn't take long before the picture's torturously slow pace turns an earnest effort into a tedious aesthetic exercise.

A 2-hour, 20-minute bore-de-force of virtually dialogue-free angst.

That's the movie--desperate grasps, huffy affronts, gulping kisses, and one juicy (if silent) sex scene, early in the film, before our senses have been deadened by boredom. Without dialogue, we don't know who the characters are, so we can't care about what they do.

[Hernandez] is obviously a man more concerned with art than commerce, but good intentions don't always make for good filmmaking.