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.

Sexual Dependency is an interesting movie, very different from the movies produced in Hollywood. However I agree with the user commenting that "it could have been a good movie". Unfortunately it has many deficiencies. One of the biggest one is that the small little stories are quite scarce and non-realistic, e.g. the first one and the last one. I don't understand the director/writer why he changed the location of the last scene... Why did he move the story from Bolivia to USA? This gave me the impression that the stories are completely different and they won't have any meeting point, or anything in common (then at the end it turns out they have). The filming technique is also quite tiresome. You see two screens, sometime having completely different action in one than in the other. And as the movie is shot is Spanish, you have to keep an eye on the subtitle. So it's really hard and tiring to follow both screens. Sometimes I had the feeling that I'm bored, at some point (after the second scene) I thought I should stop watching the movie.

With generosity and patience one could appreciate this movie. However, the director's choice of using split screens throughout is an overwhelming mistake that gets in the way of everything else he is trying to do. It becomes annoying, like receiving text totally underlined and in capital letters: not everything is equally important nor do the images on one side of the screen contribute continuously in any significant way to what happens on the other side nor enhance our grasp of the whole. So, we are regretfully left with a boring and pretentious conceit of the sort that should have been outgrown in film school. Rodrigo Bellott is nowhere near being a Peter Greenaway who can manipulate aspect ratios and split screens to profound dramatic effect, thereby creating effective, well-structured wholes (e.g. The Pillow Book, a film only done full justice on a theatre screen where the diverse aspect ratios which occur throughout the film can be shown.... DVD's can't do it).Better luck next time.... and I truly hope there is a next time for Mr. Bellott. Forcing oneself to ignore his unfortunate aesthetic choice (and this is hard, for there is no avoiding it for the whole frigging movie) one realizes that Mr. Bellott may indeed have something worthwhile to say. I wish him to try again, preferably with a strong, experienced but sensitive producer at his side.

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.