Love among tomato boxes

It is always appreciated when a film does not lecture you. This applies to any film, of course, but it is especially relevant when dealing with works that touch on social issues. In this regard, Iván & Hadoum gets into many predicaments right from its premise: Iván is a young trans man who falls in love with a coworker of Moroccan origin from the fruit and vegetable greenhouse where they both work in Almeria. That is to say, the film touches on gender, sexual identity, class, and race. But none of these is the narrative axis. In any case, class ends up having more weight, because the friction between the two characters ends up being work-related (Iván has a complacent attitude towards the bosses; Hadoum is combative). Be that as it may, the opera prima as director Ian de la Rosa is not about that either: it is about the moment when two people, regardless of their identity, converge until they diverge, like any other couple of human beings in the early stages of falling in love.

That Iván & Hadoum

normalizes this romance by avoiding miserabilist clichés, didactic discourses, or moral judgments is the great asset of this film. Of course, this is a well-intentioned film. But primarily it is a delicate and sensory work about the discovery of the other's body (the sensual sequences are magnificent). And it is also a very astute film that poses dilemmas beyond the obvious divergences: Iván's loyalty to his humble family of origin that supported him when he transitioned and how he has ended up finding his place in the world in the town where he was born clashes with Hadoum's nomadic spirit, a girl who settles down or leaves depending on where she finds work. This conflict of personalities, more than a plot in the style of Romeo and Juliet with a queer or racialized accent, is the true engine of the film.