Photo Gallery
Though both troubled, these young lovers exist on opposing ridges of Mexico's economic divide. The boy, Ramon (Juan Pablo de Santiago), was born on the affluent side to an erstwhile communist who grew to be a right-wing Congressman. Maru (astonishing newcomer Maria Deschamps), the girl, lives in a lower middle-class section of Mexico with her nurse mother and a little sister with Coke-bottle glasses. The product of a loving but pressuring single-parent household, Maru is the only one who claps when Ramon stages a fake suicide at their talent show and the boy instantly sees a kindred spirit. All but fiscally orphaned by his family, Ramon sees his father's aging communist friend as a mystic God, and his paterfamilias as a fascist.
Blatantly and viscerally new-wave in style and mood, the very title of Naranjo's film anticipates the going-nowhere exploits of its protagonists. Ramon stages a kidnapping to distract their parents while Maru and he set up a tent on the roof of Ramon's father's expansive villa. Despite the newfound freedom -- secret trips into the villa provide food, booze, and the occasional shower -- Maru's teasing only intensifies once they are on their own. Catching him masturbating, she insists that he stop goofing off.
Soundtracked by a rather incessant Conor Oberst tune, their actual escape is only underway when they consummate and Maru's mother and sister all but move into the villa. The film follows in the long line of love-on-the-run films but there are notes of deep sadness that prognosticate the film's tragic ending. Ramon's mother's death, teased and uttered only in fragments of resentment, provides a dark undercurrent to the film; one of her dresses is worn by Maru for nearly the entire second half of the film. Tinged with Freudian dread, Ramon is all but pre-destined to become his father.
Executive produced by Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, Naranjo's second feature captures the danger, uncertainty, and overwhelming vitality of youth complicated by an inability to react to the world with anything but intense emotions. The love chronicled between Maru and Ramon is wild and unpredictable, and Naranjo's active hand-held camera, wielded by cinematographer Tobias Datum, mirrors even as it devours their virility. I'm Gonna Explode does not sway its gaze from the tenuous sexuality and heartbreaking naiveté of adolescence. Its story has been told many times, but unlike many of his contemporaries, Naranjo doesn't want to make the insanity of young love palatable to everyone; there's an intimacy to youth that is easily lost and often impossible to find in the first place, and Naranjo has a blinding devotion to it.
Aka Voy a explotar.
