Amat Escalante’s film La región salvaje (2016), or The Untamed in english territories, is a bizarre fusion of the domestic drama with erotic science fiction. Escalante transports Edo style erotic, or “tentacle porn”, into the domestic sphere. In the form of an alien octopus the characters of this melodrama indulge in a kind of euphoric sexual realization that costs them their autonomy and then later their lives.
Edo erotica, with its meshing of the physical realms of human and monster or creature provides the basis of the conceptual dichotomy of La región salvaje. Escalante is essentially exploring the philosophical ramifications of this erotic fantasy within the structures of the melodrama. The central character Alejandra (Ruth Ramos), a mother and devoted sister, is trapped by the societal construct of the nuclear family but is able to reassert herself within that realm after her husband is removed from the equation and she has given in to her most primal and instinctual desires.
Alejandra’s husband Ángel (Jesús Meza) is a mirrored image of the Edo inspired alien. Both prey on people for their own sexual pleasure and emotional gain. Alejandra’s relationship to both the alien and her husband is fundamentally the same in the film as well. She is able to preemptively escape the two through her own strength of character which allows her to see in them the potential for danger.
The victims in La región salvaje are the two characters without immediate familial bonds. Fabián (Eden Villavicencio), Alejandra’s gay brother who is having an affair with Ángel, uses the alien as a means of filling the void that Ángel leaves when they break up. Verónica (Simone Bucio) is so enthralled by the pleasures promised by the alien that she lures new victims to it in order to sustain the monster. Verónica and Fabián are defined by their unwilling servitude to predatory creatures.
La región salvaje opens with a scene of Verónica in a kind of post-coital shock. She sits naked on the floor as a tentacle pulls away from her thigh. Immediately Escalante announces that this film is going to be about sex but never exploitative. So much of the film is about what isn’t shown of the creature. The focus is always on the before and after of intercourse with the alien where emotions are at their most available. When La región salvaje finally reveals the images of Alejandra having sex with the alien it isn’t shocking or exploitative but rather a moment of pitiful desperation.
