Our Time

Our Time (2018) is directed by Carlos Reygadas, who also plays the lead, opposite his real wife playing the wife. A ranch in rural Mexico raises fighting bulls. Juan is an internationally known poet and also the man who selects the animals. Esther runs the ranch. Their marriage is open and both have agreed to it. Then Esther starts something with an American horse trainer and Juan discovers this wounds him far more than he expected. The uncomfortable part is this: Reygadas plays the jealous husband himself, and the woman playing his wife is Natalia López, his actual wife. That choice sits in your mind for the entire film, which is what he wants. Juan believes he is open minded. What he does for three hours is control: reading emails, brokering, explaining to everyone what they should be feeling. It is one of the most honest films made about how jealousy dresses itself as intellect. The bull sequences make the metaphor too plain, but visually they are the strongest passages in the film. It runs 177 minutes, which is very long. Good for: art cinema, Mexican cinema, and relationship drama. Less good for: the length, explicit sex, and scenes of animal fighting. It asks for patience.