Sundown reads like a tense dream centered around the unsaid, the eternal thumping of tourist
beach towns and the different sorts of violence we impress on one another.
With sparse dialogue and through striking photography & consistent framing, rich but reigned in
sound design, Michel Franco created a contained yet disjointed hyperreal environment.
Roth gave us a pathologically disinterested character. Much like in real life, there’s often no
grand motivation for coldness and cruelty. Sometimes there is just a big void where there should
be a person, Roth’s aloofness was a performance so perfect it was grating. Neither the intention
nor the execution romanticizes the ever-present white man finding himself through the
experience of “exotic” & “reinvigorating” beach towns across the Caribbean, Central, and South
America.
“What are you doing?” No answer.
“Why?” No answer.
Sundown unveils itself with the lingering, pungency, and auditory delight of peeling garlic.
With every layer, Roth disclosed a more and more insidious ennui, and Franco’s repeated shots
framed the in the exact same manner, with the exact same action gave a strong impression of a
liminal passage of time and a natural sense of the progression of “worseness” with a final reveal
that leaves a strong distaste in one’s mouth – I frankly sighed and said “thank God” when it was
over.
It was a masterpiece that I would not know who to recommend to.