i kept watching because it looked and felt like it might say something quiet but important, the kind of thing you have to lean into to really hear. and maybe it did. maybe if you tilt your head the right way, it’s kind of poetic. the whole thing plays like a metaphor—one guy hiking literally, and the other? maybe not even real. maybe just the part of him he doesn’t want to admit exists. the demons, the hunger, the fear.
like the guy in the backseat isn’t actually there. he’s just every self-loathing thought personified. he’s the desire that doesn’t fit inside the boxes he was taught to live in. and the hike becomes this desperate act of self-purging—trying to choke it out, drown it, bury it. he tries everything but still can’t leave himself behind. he can’t make it down the mountain because the mountain is him. and that’s beautiful in a literary way.
but honestly? it’s also kind of tired. it’s giving gay pain safari. like yes, i get it, two men, one repressed, one tempting, a fight, a kiss, an existential meltdown. we’ve seen it. and without reading into it, there’s not much else there. it leans on that trope—internalized homophobia turned into sexual tension turned into violence turned into desire—and doesn’t give it anything new. it’s almost like the film expects the symbolism to do all the heavy lifting.
i didn’t like it. not really. it felt like it wanted to be profound but was too focused on being mysterious and aesthetically bleak. it’s a story i’ve seen too many times—men who can’t love themselves, so they hurt each other instead. and unless you look very closely, it’s just that. not subverted, not elevated, just the same heartbreak on repeat.
i was fighting not to fall asleep throughout the entire thing and it's only fourteen minutes long.
so yeah, it’s beautiful in its own way. but mostly in the way a wound looks beautiful under a microscope. intimate, yes. but also predictable.
i kept watching because it looked and felt like it might say something quiet but important, the kind of thing you have to lean into to really hear. and maybe it did. maybe if you tilt your head the right way, it’s kind of poetic. the whole thing plays like a metaphor—one guy hiking literally, and the other? maybe not even real. maybe just the part of him he doesn’t want to admit exists. the demons, the hunger, the fear.
like the guy in the backseat isn’t actually there. he’s just every self-loathing thought personified. he’s the desire that doesn’t fit inside the boxes he was taught to live in. and the hike becomes this desperate act of self-purging—trying to choke it out, drown it, bury it. he tries everything but still can’t leave himself behind. he can’t make it down the mountain because the mountain is him. and that’s beautiful in a literary way.
but honestly? it’s also kind of tired. it’s giving gay pain safari. like yes, i get it, two men, one repressed, one tempting, a fight, a kiss, an existential meltdown. we’ve seen it. and without reading into it, there’s not much else there. it leans on that trope—internalized homophobia turned into sexual tension turned into violence turned into desire—and doesn’t give it anything new. it’s almost like the film expects the symbolism to do all the heavy lifting.
i didn’t like it. not really. it felt like it wanted to be profound but was too focused on being mysterious and aesthetically bleak. it’s a story i’ve seen too many times—men who can’t love themselves, so they hurt each other instead. and unless you look very closely, it’s just that. not subverted, not elevated, just the same heartbreak on repeat.
i was fighting not to fall asleep throughout the entire thing and it's only fourteen minutes long.
so yeah, it’s beautiful in its own way. but mostly in the way a wound looks beautiful under a microscope. intimate, yes. but also predictable.
