Told in an elliptic fashion with long lenses, shallow focus, and most of the overt violence offscreen (sometimes just out of the frame), FROM AFAR follow the ambiguous relationship between fifty-year-old dental appliance technician Armando (Alfredo Castro, THE CLUB) and nineteen-year-old mechanic/gang member Elder (Luis Silva) he pays to strip nude while he pleasures himself. Elder initially reacts violently, knocking Armando unconscious and robbing him (using the money to put a down-payment on a wreck of a car to restore in the garage where he works) but feels remorse when Armando does not report him and instead propositions him again. When Elder is badly beaten by his girlfriend's brother who is in a rival gang, Armando hides him in his apartment to recuperate and they start a chaste yet intimate relationship whereupon Elder learns that Armando's physical and emotional distance stems from physical or emotional abuse from his wealthy father who has reappeared in the city but not in the lives of Armando or his more forgiving sister who has moved on with her life and adopted a child with her husband despite their age. Elder's naive attempts to include Armando in his own life lead inevitable to him being disowned by his family, which makes Elder even more driven to try to make things alright for Armando even if it means killing the older man's father; but Elder may have underestimated the psychological power and influence of the patriarchy on Armando and on himself (having disturbed Armando early on by saying his father beat him and he would beat his own children to teach them what life is like).