The Trace of Your Lips: Unapologetic Sexuality in Mexican Film
A conversation with director and co-writer Julián Hernández.
Picture this: Covid-related issues at the very beginning of 2020, the struggles of finding love during a world pandemic, beautifully shot frames in this colorful and diverse place: Mexico City. “THE TRACE OF YOUR LIPS” had it all for an intriguing and captivating film and believe me when I say this: that’s exactly what it delivered.
My attention was drawn the most to a very specific way of showing the human body. Several scenes presented nudity in its full glory. Frontal, sincere, natural, and relatable nudity, that is. The rawness of these interactions tends to resemble our lives a little closer, and makes us all find ourselves and our experiences, somehow portrayed on the screen.
After the film was presented at the Chéries-Chéris festival in Paris, I had the opportunity to interview director and co-writer Julián Hernández. “La huella” — as they affectionately call it — is his 7th production. They all have his signature imprinted. That is raw, unapologetic sexuality, which usually comes with many sex scenes, blunt sincere conversations before and after sex, and an inability to be dosed to the audience.
As far as inspiration for his stories, the exploitability of feelings as portraited by R.W Fassbinder gets a special place. For “La huella” specifically, the Covid pandemic served as the main giver. Julián remembers how the writing process began in February of 2020, when news and social media were flooded with an impending pandemic. The AIDS epidemic in the 80s marked him on a personal level, and he wanted the fear and anguish of those days to be somehow shared during the film as well.
Some of his muse also comes from personal experiences during early years in life, and it gives him the confidence to deliver the message despite his usually controversial point of view. Several of his stories are fictional truths from encounters that frustrated him or piqued his interest.
He remembers a stranger from the building next door, who used to throw pebbles at his window, aiming for attention. This led to months of intrigue, desire, and carnal build-up. That was the origin of all sexual tension shown to us through reflections and windows between the main characters of his latest movie.
Queer culture is also a priority for Julián. Erotic scenes, honest sexual encounters that made more than one sweat, and hookup culture shown in a more transparent and honest way, they all give us a taste of reality through his lens.
Representation of all types of relationships, beyond a traditional marriage institution seems to be a frequent goal for the director. We talked about the evolution of queerness in independent films made in Mexico, as many roles and interactions traditionally seen on the screen come from a stereotypical point of view. And although this conversation in Latino films has changed in recent years, there’s still some catching up to do.
I also learned about some of the biggest challenges the production team faced, as they included Nahuatl in the film, even for a few minutes. Their intention was to convey a message of inclusion and diversity, beyond sexual orientation.
They made that happen with Aldo, a Mexican native retail worker who wanted nothing but love, and who shows us the shades of a struggling millennial during Covid. We see him working as an actor, jumping between two languages: Spanish and Nahuatl — the most spoken indigenous language in Mexico — , flirting with more than one soul, but the main attention falls on his skills as an online sex-worker.
One of the sexiest, most anticipated scenes of the film takes place when a cop storms into Román’s apartment, while sirens were loudly sounding in the back. An aggressive, extra-touchy, masked man starts harassing the lonely actor, and it slowly leads to a steamy encounter between the two men. But it all becomes blurry when the cop starts stripping down, and a pair of denim shorts pops — a fetich Román had for the awaited session between the two main characters.
It’s not a secret that there’s more diversity at the moment in independent films and one of the main fuels for this is writers and crews willing to make these stories and fight stereotypes. There’s also more acceptance and inclusive point of views from main-stream channels. More voices are being heard these days.
By themselves, two very difficult points to touch. What one would consider two separate rabbit holes. Covid-19 pandemic and dating in the gay world. Julián — and co-writer Gustavo Hernández — managed to feed us both in their last film. They did so with limited resources and during a world pandemic, but with a clear mission to continue supporting representation of all kinds in the independent industry, especially in Hispanic films.
