CURED | Omeleto Comedy

A couple is infected amid a pandemic.
CURED is used with permission from Gabriel Villanueva. Learn more at gabrielvillanu....
A strange pandemic has swept across a small beachside community: people can't stop dancing. It looks fun on the surface, but underneath it all, everyone is exhausted. Marcos, however, has found a cure for this strange affliction, bringing him relief and rest. He shares the equally strange cure with his wife Alma, but soon his neighbors catch on, demanding a piece of it.
Rather than face the idea of curing his neighbors again, Marcos shares the secret source of his solution, which is both shocking and surprisingly dark.
Writer-director Gabriel Villanueva's surreal, outlandish comedy begins with a strange and lively sequence of unbridled dancing, as a man makes his way home lugging a small cooler, all the while grooving to the music in his headphones. When he gets inside, he's greeted with the sight of his wife dancing, and together, they make dinner, cooking up the meat in the cooler and dancing all the while. They eat, then collapse on their sofa in an exhausted heap.
This extended sequence is filmed in a realistic way, with hand-held camerawork and naturalistic lighting, but its duration and relentlessness -- and its relative lack of dialogue -- serves as a introduction to the outlandish premise of the film. It also sets up viewers to constantly adjust to the shifting of tones. At first the dancing seems funny, even adorably sexy, like out of a commercial for a particularly fun meal delivery service. But then as the action and dancing goes on -- and the acting by the leads is played for drama -- it takes on the aura of anxiety and mystery. What kind of world is this? Why dancing? How did this happen? Just what is going on here?
The film doesn't answer these questions but instead continues its story, which is genuinely unique in idea and well-crafted in its execution. If surrealism is the taking of fantasy as fact, then the storytelling here is legitimately surreal, though livened with touches of humor and panache. (Marcos and his girlfriend are, at the very least, great dancers.) There are moments of horror and even farce -- as when the whole neighborhood piles into Marcos's home, all dancing -- that are amusing, entertaining and even suspenseful.
But overall, this is a film where an audience should expect the unexpected. In this sense, the film is reminiscent of the early work by acclaimed contemporary Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, who also blends surreal narratives, dark eccentric humor and a matter-of-fact presentation of extreme situations and emotions. But like Lanthimos, what makes this high-wire act work is a polished confidence in the direction and solid and committed performances, especially by lead actor Phillip Garcia, who alone in the cast seems weighed down by what's happening to him and his community. Once we see just what knowledge weighs on his conscience, however, his weariness is understandable, as is the regret, shame and subtle heartbreak he displays in the last scene -- when we see just what the cure is and what it entails.
CURED in many ways is a genuinely uncategorizable film that refuses to fall into neat genre lines. Its outsized concept seems comical or even out of a sci-fi or fantasy film, but it's played with a seriousness that feels like drama. But the film's ending and final narrative reveal resonates with the mesmerizing dread of a horror film, and is truly unexpected. The last scene itself is strangely haunting and vivid, and without giving the secret away, has the feel of a parable. It seems to say things about humankind's propensity for destruction and its rapacious pillaging of the natural world, and it certainly lingers in the mind well after viewing.

[@cindymorris2567]

This was waaaay to sad to finish!😢

[@therealJamieJoy]

Some questions: The exploitation of nature by humans? The mind of the predator? The toll of humankind on the Earth? I think these themes are being explored. How we sometimes collectively take suffering away by inflicting suffering on others/other species/other groups of people? These are questions that were raised in my mind. Also, how far would you go to protect your family, friends, neighbors? We see this as communal suffering because the neighborhood is involved. If we take the dancing fever as literal, then people will die without sleep. People will dehydrate with that much relentless activity. They will be in agony from lactic acid building in muscles, it will eventually kill them. How is this cure sustainable? It is not easy to hunt a whale. Must the whale be alive in order to take the meat/cure? There's a lot one can explore leading to more questions rather than answers.

[@thecatspajamas1442]

Sometimes good people have to do bad things for the greater good of their people? And maybe the way we have to detach from ourselves to commit acts of violence or evil

[@nathanksimpson]

3 locations, 1 wardrobe, interesting concept. Performances were great.

[@cherylrobinson517]

I'm sure there's a lesson behind this...however, I'm too tired to figure it out right now😑.

[@therealJamieJoy]

This was fascinating. I will never forget this film. Thank you.

[@ticctocc99]

wth I just watch, lmaooo,,, would not have predicted that, lol

[@magnetdesignandadver]

This is so funny and so tragic. Hilarious and very disturbing. It's a film with a split personality. Very sexy couple.

[@traceymallard]

This is the craziest one of these I've ever seen!!!

[@vititom]

This story reminds me of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.

[@801oap]

Not really a cure, is it?

[@golding3264]

Its really beautiful even tho i didnt get it : (

[@Berrygirl6784]

🌚weird

[@jackhills2440]

Still trying to find a funny Omeleto COMEDY. I'm 0 for six.

[@AntruwaRecordings]

Ingenious

[@wallstkenziave215]

Rooster

[@danielvahnke3369]

11:28 - OK - it's awesome, but the buttplug cameltoe is WAY 22222 distracting chidrens.

[@magnetdesignandadver]

LOL! Such a bizarre and original film and this is what you fixate on? You are also very original and strange

[@AW_7_7_7]

Are they are trying to make some social commentary? Along the lines of the excessive enjoyment of Man vs. the basic survival of other life forms? 🤷‍♂️

[@therealJamieJoy]

The exploitation of nature. The mind of the predator? The toll of humankind on the Earth? I think these themes are being explored. How we sometimes collectively take suffering away by inflicting suffering on others/other species/other groups of people? These are questions that were raised in my mind. Also, how far would you go to protect your family, friends, neighbors? We see this as communal suffering because the neighborhood is involved. If we take the dancing fever as literal, then people will die without sleep. People will dehydrate with that much relentless activity. They will be in agony from lactic acid building in muscles, it will eventually kill them. There's a lot one can explore leading to more questions rather than answers.

[@StrongnBeautiful]

💡 Good one!

[@enderdoctor7631]

what's the moral

[@cathunter3042]

Not sure what's so funny about this.