I watched this Mexican film last night, Duck Season, which was released by Warner Independent Pictures under Alfonso Cuarón’s deal with the studio. This is a charming, unforced, wry ensemble comedy about four characters who spend a lazy Sunday in a middle-class apartment complex in Mexico City. The apartment belongs to fourteen-year-old Flama, and it is currently something of a battleground as the kid’s parents are raging through a messy divorce. The one pleasure is Sundays when Flama’s mom travels to another city for the day leaving Flama and his best friend Moko alone to eat pizza, drink Coka-Cola and play video games. All is well until a power outage shuts down the game and then Flama’s sixteen-year-old neighbor, Rita, interrupts and asks to borrow his kitchen to bake a cake. When the pizza delivery man, Ulises (who looks to be in his mid to late-twenties), arrives eleven seconds late, Flama refuses to pay and Ulises refuses to leave. What follows is a quirky, sometimes surreal study of loneliness, rebellion and nascent adolescent sexuality. I wouldn’t necessarily call this a coming-of-age film as the characters seem to be fairly knowing, but youthful ennui is the subject matter. There aren’t any big moments though the film builds to a catharsis of sorts. Mostly what we get are wonderful details as these characters, their desires and frustrations with the world, are intimately revealed through playful visuals (borrowing heavily from Jim Jarmusch I’d argue). It’s all in the details and director Fernando Eimbcke captures the small moments that make up this unusual day with an honesty and a simplicity of style that seems effortless. Shot in glorious black and white, Eimbcke’s visuals can get a bit mannered, but I still think this is a worthy rental.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, so I want to bump it up, and second Jeff’s recommendation.
I’d add that it’s quite funny. The pizza guy ends up playing Xbox Soccer against Flama, to determine who gets the pizza (and the money), and there’s this wonderful sequence — that is truly exciting — that cuts between the action on the scene and a p.o.v. shot of the players, intently staring at the camera and jostling elbows. Running parallel (or maybe at cross-purposes?) to the film’s meticulous framing and detailed art direction is the shaggy-dog love of watching the characters doodle about, doing nothing or, in doing nothing, finding ways to talk to one another, to open up.
I agree with the Jarmusch influence to a point; Eimbcke is much more invested in cuts than early JJ ever was, and as the film progresses its use of precision-timed cross-cutting (as Rita and Moko cook while Ulises coaxes Flama out of hiding, after a fight) opens up to wonderful effect.
It’s a pleasure to watch, and I think it’ll be interesting to see where this director goes next.
On a side-note, as this was produced by Alfonso Cuaron, I’d let other fans of his know that his first film gets dvd release in just a couple weeks–Solo Con Tu Pareja.