Halley: Sundance Review

PARK CITY - Alberto is full of scabs and too lifeless to continue his job as a gymnasium guard. That Albert’s body is punctured by grotesque abrasions is painstakingly revealed in this peculiar monstrosity from Mexico.

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In the traditional narrative sense, there’s not much story arc to Halley, other than the to-work-and-back meanderings of this bony guy. Alberto is a walking death-rattle. His days are joyless and antiseptic, indicative of the bile in filmmaker Sebastian Hoffman’s putrid message. 

Aesthetically, Hofmann has jabbed his film at the detritus of bodily functions: infections, bloody sputum and wads of other delectations. Compounding these bodily gross-outs, Hoffmann has drenched the film with accompanying tonal annoyances: insect buzzing, metal scrapings and human grunting.  Oh, and it’s topped off with, no excesses spared, a castration.

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That the film’s world-view is not a happy one is further buttressed when Alberto’s female boss drags him out on the town. Not surprisingly, she doesn’t get much action from her nearly comatose companion.  After a night of rejection, she drinks herself into a stupor, face down and alone on her couch.

Eventually, this gruel swirls into the foam of a cruel and stormy sea, which indicates that it’s either “deep” or that clips from another movie were mistakenly edited into it. 

Cast: Alberto Trujillo, Lourdes Trueba, Hugo Albores

Production companies: Mantarraya Prods., Piano, Simplemente

Director: Sebastian Hofmann (cq)

Screenwriters: Sebastian Hoffman, Julio Chavezmontes

Producers: Julio Chavezmontges, Jaime Romandia

Director of photography: Matias Penachino

Editor: Sebastian Hofmann

No rating, 84 minutes.