Sundown reads like a tense dream centered around the unsaid, the eternal thumping of tourist beach towns and the different sorts of violence we impress on one another.

With sparse dialogue and through striking photography & consistent framing, rich but reigned in sound design, Franco created a contained yet disjointed hyperreal environment. 

Roth gave us a pathologically disinterested character. Much like in real life, there’s often no grand motivation for coldness and cruelty. Sometimes there is just a big void where there should be a person, Roth’s aloofness was a performance so perfect it was grating. Neither the intention nor the execution romanticize the ever present  white man finding himself through the experience of “exotic” & “reinvigorating” beach towns across the Caribbean, Central and South America.

What are you doing? No answer.

Why? No answer.

Sundown unveils itself with the lingering, pungency and auditory delight of peeling garlic.

With every layer Roth disclosed a more and more insidious ennui, and Franco’s repeated shots framed the in the exact same manner, with the exact same action gave a strong impression of a liminal passage of time and a natural sense of progression of “worseness” with a final reveal that leaves a strong distaste in one’s mouth – I frankly sighed and said “Thank God” when it was over.

It was a masterpiece that I would not know who to recommend to.