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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE December 22, 2006

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Marieta is the star of narcoleptic-dream production numbers in 20 Centimeters.

An odd, fun film that channels Almodóvar

by Anthony Glassman

What sort of concoction could one produce by mixing equal parts My Own Private Idaho, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Pedro Almodóvar and David Lynch?

It is questions like this that have perplexed humanity since the beginning of its days, when cave paintings of animals were the first entertainment.

Okay, maybe since the early '90s, when three of those four things first became part of the mass consciousness.

Regardless, the answer would have to be 20 Centimeters, now out on DVD from TLA Releasing, those fine folks who brought us Another Gay Movie and Latter Days.

Marieta (Mónica Cervera) seems to have it all, in an odd, indie-film sort of way: an apartment with interesting neighbors who yell obscenities at each other, custody of her friend's young son, a fine job as a popular prostitute, eight inches of rock-hard manhood she's saving up to get rid of, a very

Curbside

EMPATHY @2006 BY R. KIRBY

OU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT ATOM, ABOUT ME AND MY RELATIONSHIP WITH ATOM.

attractive boyfriend who is a dwarf, a raging case of narcolepsy...

Ah, that "rock-hard manhood." It's the 20 centimeters of the title. Marieta is a preoperative transsexual who plans to undergo gender reassignment surgery within a yearif her boyfriend Tómas' (Miguel O'Dogherty) get-rich-quick scheme works or he stops borrowing money from her, whichever comes first.

(For those keeping score of which facets are which in the first paragraph, we've pretty much hit all of them: Almodóvar because it's Spanish and queer and funny, Private Idaho because of the narcoleptic prostitute, Hedwig for genital measurements and David Lynch because of the dwarf. Come on— everyone remembers the dream sequences in Twin Peaks! "I am the Arm.")

Writer-director Ramón Salazar, though, could not leave the convoluted tale alone at that. Oh, no. He tosses in a bit of Bollywood to really make a mountain out of a moderately-sized hill.

WELL OK, NO, YOU DON'T HAVE TO UNDERSTAND, BUT WHY NOT JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT IT ANYWAY. HIS SIDE OF THINGS I MEAN.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO FIRST

You \LITTLE

одна

Whenever she has a narcoleptic episode, Marieta dreams musical numbers featuring Spanish, British and American pop songs. Big production numbers with dancers and the works.

To complicate matters, Marieta succumbs to her malady in the supermarket just as the hunky studmuffin stock clerk (Pablo Puyol) is delivering a case of strawberries, which incidentally has Marieta's "boy-name" Adolfo written on the side.

Marieta hits the floor, the musical number starts, and she later awakes at the clerk's apartment. The good Samaritan took her home when she lost consciousness.

He is quite smitten with Marieta. He can find no fault with her, nothing that he doesn't like about her. There is not one centimeter of her body that he dislikes, although he has his favorite 20.

This leaves Marieta with a difficult choice: follow her life-long aspirations and get the surgery, or forge a new happiness as she is with the clerk?

Continued on page 10

By Robert Kirby

I DON'T HATE HIM, HONESTLY, I DON'T. OK, IF IT WERE ME WHOSE EX-SORT OF BOYFRIEND HAD SHOT ME, LEFT ME FOR DEAD, AND THEN RUN OFF TO MARY TYLER MOORE LAND WITH HIS EYE PATCHED STUD ACCOMPLICE ... IF IT WERE ME? I'D BE SERIOUSLY PISSED.

ATOM YOU CAN'T DO THIS

AND IF I WERE ALREADY A QUASI-YEAH, I'D TOTALLY WANNA ROUND PSYCHOTIC GANG LEADER (BUT FROM A BROKEN HOME SO NATURALLY IT'S OK AND TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE), WHY WOULDN'T I MAKE MY WAY OVER HERE TO YA-SURE-YOU-BETCHAVILLE TO GET ME SOME REVENGE?

PLEASE

атол

SHHH NATHAN

IT'S

OK

UP MY TWO BETRAYERS AND THEN GET DOWN TO THE BUSINESS OF TAKING THEM OUT, RIGHT IN FRONT OF EACH OTHER. I'D HAVE BUILT UP SOME SERIOUS HATRED ALL THESE MONTHS, ALONG WITH THE SCAR TISSUE.

No

JUST SHOO

NO NATHAN SHUT UP DON'T ME OK

ETMON

DUDE

ATOM SAYS WE COST HIM A LOT AND IT'S OBVIOUSLY TRUE. BELIEVE ME, I DON'T WANT TO END UP RAPED, BEATEN AND MAYBE KILLED, BUT I SEE HIS MOTIVATION. IT'S THAT EM-

PATHY THING. WHICH REALLY DOES N'T HELP ME ANY NOW.... MUST...OVER... POWER

HIA

とら

I'M

WASTIN'

MY TIME-

YOU'RE

BOTH

DEAD

CLICK #353

TLA RELEASING