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Reviews
El cielo dividido (2006)
A superb piece of Mexican contemporary cinema
This has been a long expected banquet, and a generous one. From my humble opinion, "Broken Sky" is a landmark for this country's cinematographic art. I was deeply moved with such a well-thought portrait of loneliness, and its rhythm has been smartly solved, excellent production and music, and you can tell someone with experience has set up this piece. Once Julian Hernandez decides to skip the obvious, superficial dialogs, the plot is nurtured by long periods of silence which reveal a given need for them, even by conveying that the characters are split apart, as well as when they communicate with each other through their inner monologues. "Broken Sky" solves itself out, though it leaves an interesting watermark by not yielding to stereotypes, and -for instance, by demystifying the Mexican gay ghetto. This opens a magical ground, for the given and missed encounters, when as a viewer, one can dress up the character's egos and hearts, placing from one's mind the thoughts and insights for them, to fill up such apparently void, mute spaces. Then you are taken by the hand of the splendid traveling and panning shots to the very edge of existential cliffs -theirs, yours, ours for that sake. "Broken Sky" feels like a sequel to "A Thousand Clouds..." and leaves me yearning for more. I need this mirror again. For a moment, I felt taken into Skolimowsky's "Deep End", judging from the Alejandro Cantu's palette, or even sequences that seem like a tribute to Fassbinder. Therefore, I cannot dare to stick "Broken Sky" in a regular category. It's been a while already since "Dona Herlinda and Her Son" double standard, or the first homosexual kiss in "A Place Without Limits". This is not a "gay" movie per se. This is an honest effort here.