Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: WHAT WENT WRONG [Miami International Film Festival 2022 - Virtual]
The idea of using your life, and your past relationships, as the basis of a movie where you are a filmmaker interviewing people about why they didn't work, is an interesting mode of self reflection but can also rest in ego. With "What Went Wrong" [Special Presentation], director/actor Liliana Torres has some moderate success in relating this because watching the film, one never really knows if this is simply a doc style mixed with certain recreations, what is real, what is fake and if the emotions are simply that. The end credits make it a little clearer in a way because it is interesting to know whether or not these are real people from her past. What this does is wear a certain amount of trust from the audience. We want to see if the movie is authentic but what is the ultimate construct. The film paints Liliana doing an interview three of her most important life relationships (and almost in three different languages). Each one gets more and more complicated with the last one and Torres' interactions there painting exactly where she or they went wrong.
The last one in particular is very specifically pointed (and really well acted --- to the point again -- where one questions the line between what she experienced and what is put on film in that specific moment). Of course something that happens afterwards and how that reflects in another relationship (hers and another) seems to be constructed but it is a metaphor that keys into the film's final scene as well, which is of course more artificial. That said, the concepts and perspective that Torres brings into her work are pretty dynamic and yet almost too aware of themselves even when the viewer is not fully versed in what they might be seeing. This can be interesting even in a reality show based world where one might not know what is scripted and what is genuine. The concept in that way is fascinating but also only for a certain type of moviegoer who appreciates deconstruction where it is going for truth and yet bathed in an undeniable reflection of self as an art. B
By Tim Wassberg
