Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Muldwych In 'Sexual Dependency', writer/director Rodrigo Bellot delivers a stark, brutal and overwhelmingly honest portrayal of humanity as driven by their sexual urges, desires, and fears. Reduced to animals, the human condition is merely a thin veneer stretched tightly over millennia of instinct. However, the film is also about the ever-changing roles of people as determined by shifting environments and perspective, which Bellot drives home through the use of a fairly uncommon and at times disconcerting film technique.So as to ensure the central message that sexual politics and animal group dynamics are fundamental to all, Bellot and fellow co-writer Lenelle N. Moise, rather than zooming in on one small cross-section of society as representative of all humanity, present a series of loosely-connected short stories populated with a number of different social groups. To really hammer the point home and ensure the viewer doesn't dismiss the unsettling narratives as simply the darker side of Bolivian culture, the action transfers halfway through to New York, where the same fundamentals of aggression are at work.Another function of the anthology is to show a progression of both sexual awakening and the inevitable consequences of social groups led by dominant and aggressive leaders. Thus the first segment explores the difference between fantasy and reality as centred around a 15-year-old girl when the testosterone-filled vultures begin to circle. However, while male dominance and aggression are undeniably the driving force of all conflicts throughout 'Sexual Dependency', the young girl's unpressured curiosity and awakening sexual desires against the juggernaut of a young man whose hormones will brook no disagreement are thrown into sharp contrast with the unwitting young man forced into sexual adventure by his peers in the next segment. By the end of the film, the dominated males are no less numerous.The third segment then shifts the focus from the weak to the sexual predator, exploring the ways in which they remain leader of the herd and how these acts impact those around them. Importantly, it also delves into the insecurity of that psyche, which plays an even greater role later on. It is here that the action relocates to New York, with one of the key Bolivian characters moving there and discovering both the true fragility of the world they have built up for themselves and that the law of the jungle is the only universal constant.In this way, the cultural shift not only reinforces the argument that basic social behavior is the same everywhere, but also demonstrates that positions of dominance are entirely relative. Here, the hunter of one world may become the prey of another, though in a film set in two countries, cultural difference in and of itself becomes a contributing factor. Besides this, the New York half of 'Sexual Dependency' goes on to explore themes not already addressed earlier, such as homophobia, rape, and reinforcing heterosexual group dynamics north of the border. The overall progression from innocence to revelation and fall continues throughout and the final segments begin to blur together in a chaotic mess (carefully structured) so as to echo the crushing mental and physical pain brought on by fear, loathing, victimization, realization, and the fall from innocence.Full credit must go to Bellot for choosing a cast who clearly understood what was being asked of them and performed it with absolute believability. I can't think of a single actor present who didn't deliver. The subtitles also were absolutely spot-on, with excellent use of equivalent English slang and colloquialisms to really ensure that cultural difference didn't distract from the underlying message. I was also quite impressed by the overall thematic progression and the way in which the way the film was edited together managed to match the escalating drama unfolding on screen, leading to a rich and layered experience as a result.The most obvious example of this is the way the film itself was shot. Bellot experiments with the widescreen format to a degree not often seen before, by having two moving images at once. For the most part, this simultaneous imagery is of the same subject, with one camera filming from a different angle. However, one video is often a few seconds out of sync with the other, providing a sort of 'echoing' effect, which is most effectively used in a monologue segment later on. At other times, the two images may be entirely different, with one intended as a thematic contrast to the other, and by the time of the drama's chaotic climax-as-descent, the visual confusion rises to a crescendo. The overall success of this technique is varied, in some places proving quite effective, while at other times being quite disconcerting and overcomplicated and in some places, not especially necessary.Another criticism I would make has to do with the murky breaking of the fourth wall that occurs toward the end of the film. Metatextuality is an art in its own right and often hard to pull off without being seemingly over-clever or gratuitous. Suffice to say, 'Sexual Dependency' is a title both of and within the film. It doesn't dampen the overall aim of the film, but it did make me feel a little cheated and emotionally 'exploited', although perhaps I simply didn't see what other viewers may regard as glaringly obvious.The bleak nature and stark reality of the subject matter unapologetically makes for a rather uncomfortable and disturbing film at times. Two hours in the company of base human desire is certainly not an easy ride. It should cause the viewer to look at themselves and how they may fit into the social hierarchy. It bypasses our rational excuses for ourselves and holds the truth up to the mirror where we can't escape. While certain aspects of its presentation and narrative manipulation didn't always work for me, 'Sexual Dependency' is a powerful, thought-provoking work of cinema and a sobering commentary on this most fundamental part of the human animal.

daniela-a-g16 it is one of the best movies i've ever seen, first of all because i saw it in a movie theater in Cochabamba Boliva, i am from Bolivia and i lived in a everyday basis watching how everything is just as the movie portrays it, not only the split screen factor is a new thing in the style of the movie, but the way of mixing two places that differ so much from one another and still teenagers have the same problems, it doesn't matter who you are where you live you can always relate yourself to the movie, i saw it and i could only think of how much truth the director poured into the movie. Finally I would like to add that not only the plot but the way the story is told gives it more dramatism and realism, it is just incredible that something of that quality was produced in my country I feel really proud to see that the international market is ready to see what Bolivia has to offer in art material

Dejhan_Tulip This movie is very good. A bunch of reasons make me say this. First of all, I am a person who has been around many countries in South America (i.e. Latin America) and I can very well relate everything that this movie showed. The movie is based on a reality that Bolivia, specially Santa Cruz (the city), lives day by day. This reality shows how people think, and how very small societies can play important and determinant roles in people's way of thinking, way of acting, and even sexuality (title of the movie.) The split screen is a very good effect. I have to admit that it is weird at the beginning, b/c first of all i have never watched a movie like that--with a split screen--and i am pretty sure many people haven't either. After 10 to 15 minutes you start to realize why the director did this, and you start to understand how he focus different things, at different times, for different purposes. Its just like real life; you just don't go around looking for one thing at a time, the effect of multi-focusing gives the movie a special taste, and most importantly, it gives the movie a very realistic taste. The movie ending is one of the best ones that i have seen in my entire life, totally unexpected, totally shocking, and makes you think about every single thing that you saw in the movie. I would strongly recommend it. Trust me, just see it, with an open mind, and you will like it. 10/10

j-dewolff This is not an easy movie to watch. Not only is the topic rather heavy, but the way the director shows the images is in the beginning very disturbing and tiresome: you constantly see two images at the same time, like the screen is split in a left and a right half! Sometimes it's two totally different images from two different story-lines, at other times it's just two different camera-angles of the same going-ons. At first I thought it would eventually turn to one image, or it would just get split-up again when there was some specific reason for it. But when it dawned on me that this would go on throughout the whole 105 minutes, it almost made me turn the thing off. Luckily I didn't, because gradually your eyes and brain apparently get used to this, and I have to say: the movie itself is really good!! It was advertised on my DVD-box as some sort of sequel to Kids or Ken Park movie, which I think doesn't justify it. Sure, it's got the same sense of documentary, young actors going about as if they're not acting at all, and camera's wavering about, and it's as candid in the way the different stories are told and shown. But it's a lot less superficial, you seem to get more into the characters of the persons, which at least enables you a little bit to comiserate and care for them. It's about some 5 young kids who all have reasons for frustrated feelings about sex and sexuality. Some in a very simple way, like the young village-girl with the raving strict father, who's dying for her first experience. Or the young virgin guy who gets forced by his drunk and roaring friends to visit a prostitute. In others it's more complicated: hidden homosexual feelings in a macho latino, or coping with the experience of a rape. The different story lines are cleverly woven into eachother, in a very natural way (witch is helped of course by the splitting of the screen) and somehow I didn't even notice it much when the story brought us to a Spanish or an American spoken scene. Of course you're not to expect any happy ending with this kind of bare, painfully honest movies, and the one here is equally depressing, just giving you the hope that everyone will somehow have learned something from his or her bad experiences. Maybe that's my main criticism: there's very little room for a smile, it's maybe all a bit too pitch-black. However: absolutely worth while. 8 out of 10.