Unmade Beds

After Glue, his feature début set in Patagonia (selected in 2006 for the Tiger Award Competition), the Argentine Alexis Dos Santos again presents an energetic, offbeat film, situated this time in the lively squatting and band scene of London’s East End.
Just how well Dos Santos knows this subculture is partly apparent from the small cameo he himself plays. The story meanders around two foreigners in their twenties who are in search of themselves and the future. At first they are just looking for a comforting safe haven – in the form of a squat, a sofa in a bed-sit, a large bed. The Belgian Vera (rising star Deborah François) tries to heal her broken heart by entering a relationship – under very strict conditions – with a foreigner, played by the Dutch actor Michiel Huisman. The Spanish Axl (the talented Fernando Tielve), a kid from Madrid, still naive in a sexual sense, hangs round in London looking for his father, whom he hasn’t seen for years. He thinks he recognises him as an estate agent he approaches for a rented flat.
Unmade Beds is shot with the typically poetic realism and the dreamy visual flair that already characterised the award-winning Glue. Dos Santos’ charming second film is more complex and mature, but just as beautifully contrary. (GT)

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