Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Duck Season directed by Fernando Eimbcke

Forget grown-ups, cupcakes and Narnia - here's your real lazy Sunday. Two teenage boys, left alone in a Mexico City apartment, plan to spend the day playing video games, drinking soda and eating chips. A neighbor girl comes by to use the oven for some baking. Then the power goes out. The boys take more notice of the girl. They order a pizza.

Though the plot may be skeletal, a lot happens in "Temporada de Patos" ("Duck Season"), the debut feature by Mexican writer-director Fernando Eimbcke, 35. Shot in a series of long takes by the steady gaze of a fixed camera, the film bursts with life as the characters move about the room and all around the corners of the frame. The deadpan humor and low-key performances are reminiscent of the early films of Jim Jarmusch, a debt Eimbcke makes explicit by thanking his predecessor in the end credits along with another master of cinematic stillness, Yasujiro Ozu.

For a project that's been described as a film in which nothing happens, it seems packed with ideas about the big issues: what brings people together, what bonds them and what makes their lives meaningful.


You can find the review here

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