The film was inspired by a poem by Carlos Olmos called ‘The Eclipse’. It touches on gender dilemmas and existential issues. Even the matriarch teaches the children to beat some drums ferociously during the eclipse so that the moon will win, for if the sun wins, everyone will be fried!
Juliٞán Robles was born into an acting dynasty. His father is the well-known actor Fernando Robles and his brother is Fabián Robles. He started out making a name for himself in the very popular telenovelas that are watched all over Latin America. He worked writing and performing on works such as El Vuelo del Aguila (The Flight of the Eagle) where he played a brother to real-life brother Fabián.
Luisa Huerta as Doña Dominga with Sabina Pétriz as Indira
The two short films that he then wrote and directed, are philosophical and existentialist. They both challenge the role of the artist, whatever his milieu, be it music or the circus. In Catarsis (2010), a composer is lost for inspiration and in seeking distraction, chances on a theatrical production of Luigi Pirandello’s fascinating “Six characters in search of an Author.” As these lost characters search to express themselves in a void, the composer understands that authors must not abandon their characters, nor the composers their music.
Watch on: - https://www.stage32.com/media/595632437074077189
Fernando Álvarez Rebeil (Mario), Sabina Pétriz (Indira) Luisa Huerta (Doña Dominga) Dolores Heredia (Mercedes) and Kristyan Ferrer (Gerardo)
His second film Mimesis 2014 questions the role of an old-time magician who is helped by a young illusionist, but at what price? Now in Iguana like the Sun, Robles changes tack quite definitively, as he explores the more intimate and personal lives of a group of people following a bereavement.
Here, the art form he refers to is poetry, as he says in an earlier essay: -
“ Poetry is cadence, rhythm and sound, a connection between assonances and resonances that produce the most perfect of euphonies in language…an staircase contains a given number of steps, however one can go down it in manifold ways, a sudden change of speed, a sudden halt or a headlong jolt, anything goes, as long as in the end it yields a pleasurable experience. The most awkward moves can turn into a dance as long as they are deliberate.”
This passage could describe the feel of his debut film ‘Iguana in the Sun’. The film is perceived through a haze of memories, omens, shadows and deep erotic yearnings. Set in a humble beachside village facing a beautiful blue sea, a family struggles to come to terms with the sudden death of the patriarch, overshadowed by an impending total eclipse of the sun that many see as an evil portend of bad times ahead.
When a young guest, Mario (Fernando Álvarez Rebeil) turns up from the city to stay, he disrupts the uneasy world they live in: “comets, cyclones, hurricanes… evil is coming to earth…!
Doña Dominga (Luisa Huertas) is the powerful matriarch who tries to hold it all together with a fist of iron. She is certain her son was murdered by the Narcos (drug dealers) for refusing to sell them his modest hostel and bar, but his grandson Gerardo (Kristyan Ferrer) knows too well it was an accident, having tired of having to bring his Dad home from the local brothel after yet another night of heavy drinking. This is a family sitting on a volcano of secrets, with tensions that build up, ready to explode as the eclipse approaches.
Everyone has their own agenda, their own agony and their own existential crisis. The widow Mercedes (Dolores Heredia) drifts into erotic dreams and memories of her lost husband. Her superstitious and secretly pregnant sister-in-law Elia (Mayra Batalla) is tormented by apocalyptic fears of damnation after having been seduced by the handsome pastor of a dodgy religious sect. Still, she cannot resist make a play for Mario. Mario, however, has other interests. 
Khotán Fernández as the Pastor
Everyone lives trapped in their thoughts and fears, none more than Doña Dominga who complains it is impossible to rest while her dead mother haunts the shadows. In the quagmire of the mangrove groves all around, dead souls seem to inhabit in the air, as mysticism and superstitions weave together, and Doña Dominga hears otherworldly whispering voices that come from nowhere to torment her.
The only one who is pragmatic and aware of the here and now with astonishing aplomb, is Doña Dominga’s intelligent granddaughter, the 15- year old Indira Ghandi (Sabina Pétriz) so called because her father heard the name on the tele and loved it. Nothing gets past her, yet she also feels she has been cursed in her own way by her circumstances, unable to live the life she wants and celebrate her all-important 15th birthday.
Kristyan Ferrer as Gerardo
In this strongly Catholic environment, the sister-in-law is seen as a betrayer for vying for independence and joining a mysterious sect. Crosses hang from the mirrors of pick- up trucks as keeping to the ways of God are considered paramount, so when the presence of the guest Mario leads to the questioning of Gerardo’s sexuality, Doña Dominga’s remark “Life stops here when the sun sets’, takes on other levels of meaning as everyone tries to conceal who they really are.
Sabina Pétriz as Indira
Like a metaphor for his own existence, Gerardo has captured a strange sea creature that watches the family through a cage of netting stirring up images of a repulsive monster that we never see. Mario’s efforts to persuade Gerardo to go with him to the city are fraught, as Gerardo struggles with his own feelings, his duty towards his family and his deep desires for independence.
This is an intensely sensual and visual film, with superb atmospheric cinematography. By also using a vibrant sound track, Robles has displayed an understanding of the craft of film and created an interesting and moving film. A great achievement for an ‘opera prima’.
Dolores Heredia as Mercedes
The film will be released in the UK at the 2022 Raindance Film Festival- October 31st 2022, 6.30 pm at the Genesis Cinema,
0207 780 2000 / info@genesis-cinema.co.uk / 93-95 Mile End Rd , London E1 4UJ.
It will also be available online from Nov 1st – Nov 8th
