Raging Sun, Raging Sky (2009)

Julián Hernández's film Raging Sun, Raging Sky (Rabioso Sol, Rabioso Cielo) had come to my attention as a gay Mexican movie, and a couple months ago I added it to my Cinema Q list. And then a week or two ago I saw that it was on the Criterion Channel but was going to leave at the end of April. It's three hours and ten minutes long, but I decided to watch it anyway.

All of the synopses of this film online are incorrect. In this film, three young men are looking for love and sex in Mexico City. The film opens on a woman who is hearing a lot of voices. She rides the bus, she hears voices; she seems to be looking for someone. She finds our young hero. The two of them spend the night together. Then in the morning, before she leaves, she blesses him and tells him his beloved will come find him. For the next ninety minutes or so of the film we watch men have anonymous, mostly unenjoyable sex in black and white. The men, including our hero, look for something that will make them happy, connect, disconnect, reconnect. It's the gay world of Mexico City – cruising in restrooms, in porno houses, in apartments, alleyways, bars, on the streets. There's a lot of this.

Our hero finds his beloved, and the man trying to come between them finds himself upset and sad. And then... we are in the mythical world of the Maya, in, perhaps, the Popul Vuh. And our four main figures have become figures of Mayan mythology, fighting for good or evil, love or selfishness. As I say, Raging Sun, Raging Sky is a three-hour film, and the last act of the film takes place in the desert, in a mythological world where the woman from act one plays a character called the heart of the sky.

I adored this movie. It's visually stunning – at times even breathtaking – and it is always compelling. It's sexy and beautiful and just wonderful. I loved it absolutely, and I can't believe I've never seen a Julián Hernández film before now. I need to check out his earlier work.