A sexually frank and emotionally tender look at the pains of growing up,
"Krámpack" is incisive, but lightweight.
Director Cesc Gay attempts to combine the Latin spirit of "Y Tu Mamá También" with the edge of "Ma Vie", but is only partly successful.
Smoking dope, hanging out around the pool and chasing the local girls,
teenagers Nico (Vilches) and Dani (Ramallo) appear to be having the best
summer holiday ever. Underneath the carefree façade, though, more
complicated matters are rearing their head (so to speak).
Friends since kindergarten, the pair have become best buddies in
adolescence. Together they indulge in highly-charged bouts of wrestling, intimate
conversations about their manhood, and regular games of 'krámpack' (mutual
masturbation) to relieve their pent up sexual tension.
Is it simply homoerotic horseplay or something emotionally deeper?
Avoiding the obvious routes, Gay's film - based on a stage play by Jordi Sánchez - delivers a poignant, affecting teenage drama about two boys who just wanna have fun. But in very different ways.
Gay provides ample breathing space for the two leads, who brilliantly capture the shy hesitancy and frantic desperation that characterises testosterone-charged boys.
They maintain a perfect balance even in the more challenging scenes - such as the one in which Nico and Dani "krámpack" each other while chatting about TV anchorwomen and the right kind of brandy to drink.
But there's something rather affected, and workmanlike, about way the story
is told. Desperate attempts to jazz up the action with occasional title cards - 'Nico: Not so fast, it hurts'– nor the frank moments of physical intimacy
can disguise its obvious shortcomings.
Krámpack (2003)
