I’m Short, Not Stupid Presents: ‘Master Muscles’

Efren Hernandez’s Master Muscles has a very literal sense of humor. He obscures the traditional set-up and punch line formula by basically being all punch line. His film Muscle Man plays out like a highlight reel of a severely dysfunctional couple whose home videos have found their way onto Youtube. Many of the jokes stem from the ridiculous domme/sub relationship between the two characters: a nebbish, balding white man and a strong, spunky muscular black woman. What begins like a simple home video turns into a show of strength and a battle of egos between real life body-builder Jehina Malik and director/actor Efren Hernandez. 

The strengths of the short are hidden in its simplicity. The frenetic structure, offbeat pacing, and shitty equipment offer an intimacy that allows the film to shock and surprise with its antics. The cuts from Efren to Jehina, slashing couches with knives to eating dinner with forks, and blaring metal music to silence somehow exemplify all of life’s incongruities. Whether Hernandez meant do that or just lucked out is tough to determine. But regardless, the film is a trip and I bow to it. Master Muscles. Master Muscles. Master Muscles.

Director Efrén Hernández was born in 1989 and lived in Los Angeles until he moved to New York City to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Now he makes his living as a chef and creates movies when he can. Master Muscles was an official selection at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. I reached out to Efren to see if he could drop some insight on his funny little film. Check it out. 

VICE: Directing and acting in a film about you getting dominated by a muscular black woman seems like an odd way to make your cinematic debut. What do you think?
Efren Hernandez: I guess it’s a little weird. It’s been with me for such a long time that it’s not odd to me anymore. I also couldn’t see myself asking someone to play the part. It seemed like a hard thing to ask an actor to do and conceptually it felt like it needed to be me. I think it works [laughs].

Where did you meet Jehina Malik? Was it love at first fight?
I met her sister first. Her sister was a basketball player and I was doing camera work on a web show called Pimp My Website. It’s like MTV’s Pimp My Ride, but no Xzibit and it’s about websites. She was the guest. She told me about her family and mentioned her sister was a bodybuilder. I asked her if I could meet her because I had already written a version of the movie by then. Then I met her at a bar and when we ordered beers she told the bartender, “I don’t know what it was, I drank it here last week.” The guy had no idea what she was talking about, so she walked behind the bar, opened their refrigerators, looked around, and pulled out some kind of strawberry beer. They all let her do whatever she wanted. I fell in love after that.

The camera work, casualness of your performances, and the free-wheeling spirit of the film give the impression of a documentary. But it’s a narrative. Was your intention to convince people it was real?
No, not really. It was a way to make a movie with no resources. We had no money and maybe three or four people on set at all times. So I just thought up of something that would work within those constraints that would be entertaining and could still be appreciated on a more conceptual level. I draw a lot from internet videos. So part of the initial idea was to make a movie where if you just took out every individual scene, it could be a Youtube video. I have gotten a lot of people asking me if it’s real and if Jehina’s actually my girlfriend. That’s a really cool response to get but it also makes me paranoid that people don’t think I actually know how to make a movie. Which I probably don’t, but I like to think I can fake it pretty well. 

How much of the film is improvised? 
We improvised a lot. I had too much footage. Then I sort of forgot about the script and started cutting it all down until we had the version of the movie we have now. At some point, I looked back at the script and realized we unknowingly cut it really close to the script. I’d say it’s about 80 percent scripted and the rest is improvised. 

Was it a collaborative process with Jehina?
Chowing down like a mother is one of my favorite lines and that’s all Jehina. It was definitely collaborative. When I first met with Jehina about the movie, we worked out what our relationship in the movie would be like and she never stopped treating me that way. She still treats me that way. Instead of a hug, I get a headlock which you’d think should feel embarrassing but I think it’s pretty cool. We both shot the movie together, shared the camera, and she would remind me of my lines when I forgot them. She knew the script better than me at some points.

She’s tough.
When we were on the beach, I was a little worried about people seeing us doing the thing where she rides on my back like a horsey. I remember her saying something like, “don’t be a little bitch, let’s do this.” That might not be what she actually said, but that’s what I remember hearing. That’s a really cool thing to hear your actor tell you. I’m really grateful I got to make the movie with her.

What are you working on now?
I’m making another short film right now. This one’s about conjoined twins. It’s called Ham Heads. I have a Kickstarter page up for it. 

Jeffrey Bowers is a tall mustached guy from Ohio who’s seen too many weird movies. He currently lives in Brooklyn, working as an art and film curator. He is a programmer at the Hamptons International Film Festival and screens for the Tribeca Film Festival. He also self-publishes a super fancy mixed-media art serial called PRISM index.