Daniel & Ana (2009)

Great Film overall

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Blistering performances.

The title characters are teen-aged brother and sister who are kidnapped and forced to perform such unspeakable acts that their relationship is shattered forever. It's interesting to see how each reacts to the tragedy. The slow pacing is frustrating, given that dialog is sparse and there are endless scenes of characters doing nothing but staring into space. As Daniel, Bernal gives a one-note performance. He barely speaks five lines throughout the movie, making it hard to understand what he's going through or to sympathize with him. Vega fares better as his sister, an outgoing young woman whose spirit is severely deflated by the attack.

Good film, not a great film, but very good. This is one of those stories you hear that happen in some areas of Latin America. A couple is abducted and then forced, under threat of death by gunshot, to perform sex acts in front of a camera. In this case it is a true story and, they are siblings.This happens fairly early in the film, maybe 1/4 of the way through. Be forewarned, it is fairly graphic. The rest of the film deals with the two of them trying to put their lives back together. After about a week of not leaving her room, Ana manages to force herself to talk to a psychologist. Daniel, can not seem to bring himself join her in session though and refuses to seek help. When it seems like they are finally starting to be able to talk to one another again, Daniel sneaks into her room and rapes Ana.At this point, the movie seem to be really lacking. The story lacks any sort of closure. Daniel is becoming violent and is developing an association between sex and violence. Ana gets married (she was already engaged when the movie starts) and runs off to Spain with her new husband. The film just sort of ends there. The filmmakers remind us that it is a true story, and make a point in telling us how common this really is. They then fail to tell us if Daniel and Ana ever reconcile. What happens to Daniel? Does Daniel get help, end up in prison, or ??????? It is their story but it leaves you hanging when they are at a terrible point in their relationship. What happened next????????

DANIEL & ANA is based on a true incident, and reveals a relatively unknown aspect of The Porn Industry. The thesis of the film is that, especially in South and Central America, some individuals engaging in online pornography may not be willing participants. Although the film is darkly bleak and disturbing, it presents an unfortunate aspect of human behavior. If an individual has been subjected to extreme sexual or psychological horror, they might not react in a way that one would ordinarily expect. I think that many people who have commented on this film have failed to recognize this important fact. The behavior that Daniel engages in after the event, although wildly inappropriate, is not in any way out of the realm of possibility. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not easily 'cured', or even understood, and can cause significant impairment in all aspects of human functioning.

Movie has an amazing first act---sort of drawing you in with its low key matter of factness to a jaw dropping end of the first act---the big thing that happens to the 2 characters happens almost out of nowhere (the only warning you get that the film is even gonna focus on the 2 siblings is at one point the younger brother's friend says to him yo your sister is hot to which he responds the way a normal kid would--something like "nah she's ugly but at least she doesn't look like a piece of s--t like you.") Hell even the abduction when it comes--happens unexpectedly while the two of them are in the car and she's yelling at him to get a haircut for her wedding. That kidnapping of course and the thing that happens there is quite creepy, uncomfortable, spellbinding, and way too real life which makes it all the scarier (no glossy movie star posturing here.) The rest of the movie is dedicated to the emotional damage this event has on the pair of siblings. While seeing the aftermath of such trauma upend both people's lives is interesting to a point---the movie itself starts to feel more than a little repetitive--and even tho the low key tone of the film is very much an asset--the movie starts to feel a little bit dull as you sit there waiting for something else to happen to either one of the two characters. (which is completely ironic given that something major already happened---something that happened when we weren't expecting it and something that should by all means be more than enough story wise.) Just when it seems like the movie is going to break out of its cycle of scene after scene of the 2 characters moping around their house looking vacant and blank---the film more or less ends. (the sister tries to heal herself by getting therapy and trying to confront what happened to her head on--essentially trying to get her life back together---while the brother just goes deeper and deeper into shell shocked madness....which results in several sequences that make up the pretty startling ending of the film.) The last 2 or 3 scenes are interesting enough in that your sense of suspense picks back up enormously. (i had no idea watching the film that those scenes would end up being the end scenes though which make you realize that the ending is just as low key and out of the blue as the abduction at the beginning of the film was.) I won't say what happens--but its not so much that something happens so much as the sustained tone of menace and creepiness that the director successfully punches up in those last few scenes.