Lauren-I'm Gonna Explode

On Tuesday night I went and saw I'm Gonna Explode by Gerardo Naranjo. Luckily for me, he was present for the film and I was able to see a VERY nice presentation by Bill Guentzler honoring the director. This is Naranjo's third film and I will definitely try to watch the other two at some point. He was cute, quiet man who seemed genuinely pleased with the various awards and proclamations that Bill presented him with.
I'm Gonna Explode is teen angst at its finest. Not the cheesy variety, but instead the kind that makes you remember a time when you were sixteen laying in a field with someone you were madly in "love" with.
The story follows Roman, the son of a wealthy politician and Maru, a local working class girl whose father is missing and is raised by her weepy mother. The film is set in Guanajuato, Mexico and shoots smoothly between the city and the countryside. The music was AMAZING. It was fun, catchy, and dark all at the appropriate times. The teens are disturbed, Roman far more than Maru, yet you can't help but root for them even when Roman is pretending to hang himself during a school assembly. Performance art at its finest. The two hatch a plan to run away and do just that. Except they run away to the top of Roman's father's mansion to live in a tent and steal groceries when the adults are out "looking" for them. I use quotations, because Roman's father seems to know that his son is toying with him the whole time. They are not in danger, simply hiding and that they are. They swig red wine and beer from bottles, listen to music, kiss, and fight. These two spend QUITE a lot of the film fighting.
I loved Maru; I thought she was charming and sharp. She didn't let Roman give her any shit. Roman, I had a hard enjoying because of his attitude. Basically, I spent half the film wanting to smack him.
The cinematography was unreal. It was beautiful. That's the only word I have for it.
And throughout it all, Gerardo Naranjo lets the darkness of the two teens shine through. Maru's diary entries act as a voiceover essentially, thoughts pouring out as she furiously scribbles. Roman's descent into madness continues along with excessive drinking and his paranoia screams through the screen. Especially when the two are caught and then separated. Maru returns to the rooftop fortress to find Roman rigging up a gun with fishing wire. He questions her behavior and as she is answering the cops descend. Maru ends up tripping the wire, and getting shot in the stomach by her dear "Romantico".
I can say that this caught me by complete surprise. I was expecting him to be the one to be shot. The next scene is Maru in the hospital in a daze, ignoring friends and her mother, and then slowly crawling out of her hospital window, blood staining her hospital dressing gown as she continues on. She heads along to the tree that her and Roman share as their special place, to reflect their special, albeit fucked up bond. You then see Roman's father paying a mental ward orderly a bribe when he explains that Roman sneaks out. Roman gets into a car and drives to the tree, looking smug and quite content. That all changes when he finds Maru half dead in the tree waiting. Waiting for him. He was too late. Their bond was broken. And Maru dies in the back of the car Roman was driving, while he runs frantically away. All of this is narrated by Maru's journal entries, pen on graph paper explaining her kinship with Roman, their pact, their bond. You the viewer know she died in vain, yet the tortured innocence that Maru's gentle voice reflects as you see her dying is quite a powerful and disturbing thing. I can't explain it. Try to get a copy of I'm Gonna Explode, hopefully then you'll know what I am trying to say.