L.A. Latino

Unfaithful Women

Mujeres Infieles (Chile)

By ROBERT KOEHLER

An Andes Films release (in Chile) of a Manquehue Films presentation of a Jazz Films production. (International sales: Jazz Films, Santiago.) Produced by Jaime Solis. Executive producers, Juan Carlos Arriagada, Rodrigo Ortuzar. Co-producers, Francisco Javier Morande, Jorge Cardemil, Gonzalo Rojas, Solis. Directed by Rodrigo Ortuzar. Screenplay, Walter Slavich, Marcelo Slavich, based on an idea by Ortuzar, Juan Jose Hurtado.
 
With: Lucia Jimenez, Maria Jose Prieto, Cristian Campos, Maria Izquierdo, Liliana Ross, Viviana Rodriguez, Francisco Perez Bannen, Sigrid Alegria, Mateo Iribarren, Benjamin Vicuna, Remigio Remedi, Aldo Parodi, Daniel Alcaino.
 

Like a quickie that's forgotten by morning, "Unfaithful Women" is an overly busy and glib sex comedy revolving around a scandalized TV personality caught in an affair. Like another recent Chilean comedy, "Sex With Love," helmer Rodrigo Ortuzar's ensembler winks at larger issues of gender, mores and social change in a recently conservative culture, but spends most of its time churning out a swift and wafer-thin film that underrates its audience. Good local run in 2004 has sparked a decent 2005 tour of major and minor Latino-themed fests around the globe.

Ortuzar, a vet of commercials, shows his sixth sense for grabbing attention with an opener involving TV host Cecilia (Maria Jose Prieto) having a lusty round of sex in a fashionable no-tell motel with her lover, until it's rudely interrupted by a gas explosion. Rewind to the TV studio shows Cecilia, with sex expert Eva (Maria Izquierdo) and obnoxious co-host Mario (Daniel Alcaino), discussing a poll reporting that 62% of Chilean women are unfaithful. Eva's conclusion, that women stray when they're bored, cements the film's unmistakable theme.

Cecelia's public humiliation -- thanks to Mario taking a news camera into the still-burning hotel room to literally expose her -- triggers pic's storyline, but it's quickly choked by numerous other narrative strands, including a buffoonish one involving Carola (Viviana Rodriguez), whose own affair makes Cecelia's look tame. Meanwhile, a bawdy Spanish gal (Lucia Jimenez) plans to open a sex shop in Santiago and takes it as her mission to recruit as many women as possible into her libertine lifestyle.

The sum of all of this is that Chilean women can be frisky, and that Chilean men are as clueless as men everywhere else about what women really want. The script by two Argentine men, Walter and Marcelo Slavich, displays no real insight except its obvious indebtedness to the Italian sex comedy tradition. In a crowded ensemble, the actors tend to vie for attention rather than carve out distinctive characters.

Production values are adequate for a film lusting to be slick.

Camera (color), Juan Carlos Bustamante; editor, Marcela Saenz; music, Quique Gonzalez; production designer, Paulina Braithwaite; sound (Dolby Digital), Ernesto Trujillo; assistant directors, Waldo Salgado, Pablo Vial; casting, Samuel Leon. Reviewed at Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, Oct. 27, 2005. Running time: 106 MIN.