“KRAMPACK,” THE ORIGINAL, more risqu頴itle of Spanish director Cesc Gay’s Nico and Dani, is also friends-since-grade-school Nico and Dani’s code word for mutual masturbation. On the first night these horny, frustrated 16-year-old virgins reunite for a summer holiday in Dani’s parents’ Mediterranean beach house, they perform this sexual ritual while facing each other across a bed, fantasizing about the day when the unsatisfying kr᭰ack will be replaced by another person’s touch.
NICO AND DANI
directed by Cesc Gay with Jordi Vilches and Fernando Ramallo runs March 9-15 at Egyptian
But whom will that other person be? For Nico (Jordi Vilches), any girl would do. An outgoing lad who chats up ladies young and old, digs motorcycles, and brags about the sexual significance of his big Adam’s apple, Nico soon convinces two local teens, Elena and her cousin Berta (fittingly more physically developed than their lanky male counterparts), to pass the hot days with him and his best pal. For Dani (Fernando Ramallo), a budding writer who appreciates Nico’s company more than he or the young Casanova might have imagined, the answer’s not so easy. But after a hands-on kr᭰ack with Nico, a disquieting sexual tryst with an unconscious Berta, and a reckless fling with a much older gay novelist, Dani realizes whom he desires most, even if that person can never return his affections.
Based on a play by Jordi Sanchez, Nico and Dani has a refreshing literary quality, progressing like a series of simple, tightly crafted short stories. Nico and Dani come across as average adolescents doing average activities—slapping on hair gel to impress their dates, waging splashing wars in the sea, attempting to cook pasta in a frying pan, hunting rabbits. Knowing exactly when to begin and end a scene, Gay prevents the ordinary from collapsing into the mundane, creating a surprisingly subtle film that evokes excitement and heartache that— in equal parts—make up first love.
