The Sentimental Engine Slayer

Barlam and Natalia inhabit a cluttered family home in a sprawling El Paso suburb, a 1950s-style neighborhood. The mother is curiously absent, leaving the siblings to navigate life with a motley crew of chain-smoking deadbeats like Zack. Catholic ephemera scatter the space, turning the house into a pressure cooker for their fragile family dynamic.

Barlam obsessively collects model versions of the '67 Mercury Cougar, a reminder of happier times. He visits his therapist father, Angel Marcelo Rodriguez Chevrez, to quiz him on the divorce details, hoping to uncover a key to their fractured family. The fixation anchors his sense of control in a world that feels increasingly unreal.

Barlam discovers a look-alike teen, Rikardo Rodriguez Lopez, whom he suspects is the product of his mother's alleged indiscretion. The boy becomes a fixation that pushes Barlam toward drastic actions. This discovery foreshadows the strange, destabilizing events to come.

Under Barlam’s coercive insistence, Natalia abducts Rikardo to extract information about his mother's past and the mysterious origins of the look-alike. The plan cements a dangerous partnership between the siblings and propels the plot into chaos. The act marks the first overt step into irretrievable territory.

Barlam is pressured into a liaison with Becky Vigil, an indifferent prostitute, whose encounter hints at volatile sexuality and a lack of empathy that will fuel future violence. The affair deepens his detachment from a stable sense of self. It also signals the growing disconnect between his desires and reality.

Barlam embarks on a disorienting series of sexual encounters across the city, each interaction pushing him further into a murk of fantasy and coercion. Boundaries blur between fantasy and reality, eroding his judgment. The pattern foreshadows a drastic escalation of danger and violence.

The chaos spirals into unprovoked violence and a storm of surreal elements, including transgender experimentation and mirage-like anomalies. The world around Barlam seems to twist, reflecting his unraveling psyche. This phase marks a pivot from personal misdeeds to a broader sense of destabilization.

Only at a crucial moment does Barlam’s mother appear, not clearly as a living person but perhaps as a figment or the circuitry at the core of the house’s electronic brain. This ambiguous visitation deepens the film’s blend of fantasy and reality. It hints that family history and the home itself may be entangled with something beyond ordinary perception.

In a culmination of pent-up rage, Barlam unleashes a literal bloodbath of unresolved hostility, sabotaging any chance of normal resolution. The violence shatters the last threads of his fragile control and humiliates his fragile ego. This act exposes the depth of his psychosis to those around him.

Under the moonlight, Barlam embarks on a mission to dispose of the fruits of his psychosis, a ritual that feels both dangerous and oddly ceremonial. The act represents a final attempt to erase the chaos he has created, even as the meaning remains elusive. The scene emphasizes the film’s dreamlike ambiguity as it moves toward closure.

The film presents a paradoxical twist that may be understood only through repeated viewings, leaving the viewer to struggle with what is real and what is imagined. The ending deepens the puzzle, with lingering questions about the mother, the home, and Rikardo. It invites contemplation rather than a clean answer.