A hospital room is the last place you're expecting to reunite with an old friend. But such is life according co-directors Jose Mari Goenaga and Jon Garaño. Main characters Maite and Axun resume a chaste relationship over the span of 80 days.
Maite is the outspoken one, comfortable with her life and sexuality, she understands and voices her attraction to Axun to mutual friends. Axun however is more repressed, still married to the world's grumpiest man, and don't know how to reconcile her inner feelings with the outer world.
How close will they get to understanding the nature of their relationship? What will the consequences be? The driving force of the film is in watching these too old friends dance ever closer to the truth. The acting and script are both equally fantastic. The portraits of the two women are nuanced and rich. Axun is loyal to a fault. Though her husband and daughter protest, she visits her ex son in law as he convalesces in a hospital bed. Maite is loyal too, visiting her comatose brother and throwing him a ridiculous balloon-strewn birthday party.
80 DAYS is the first Basque film I've seen and it will not be the last. I plan on seeking out more films from this region, all thanks to seeing this film at Cinequest. Really good.
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