A typical lazy Sunday gives way to an introspective look at what it means to grow up for two 14-year-old boys left alone for the afternoon in director Fernando Eimbcke's gentle coming-of-age comedy. With the parents away and the Xbox all to themselves, best friends Flama (Daniel Miranda) and Moko (Diego Cataño) plant themselves in front of the television and prepare for a fun afternoon of junk food, soda pop, and video games. As the battle to the death rages on the television, Flama's 16-year-old neighbor Rita (Danny Perea) knocks on the door to ask if she can use Flama's oven to bake a cake. When disaster strikes in the form of a deathmatch-killing power outage, Flama and Moko hang up the video-game controllers and call the local pizza parlor in hopes that the delivery man won't make the 30-minute guarantee and they will get a free pie. With a stopwatch in hand and the clock ticking, hapless delivery driver Ulises (Enrique Arreola) arrives precisely 11 seconds late. As the power flickers back on and the stubborn boys insist that their pizza should be free, Ulises contests their claim before agreeing to battle Moko in a video soccer match that will determine once and for all if the boys will pay for their pizza. Their game foiled by yet another unexpected blackout, the bored teens begin contemplating the strange behavior of adults, and the role that a painting of ducks plays in the bitter divorce of Moko's parents. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
Duck Season fits well into an admirable tradition of modest, naturalistic youth portraits ranging from
The 400 Blows to
Raising Victor Vargas. Co-released by
Alfonso Cuarón's Esperanto Filmoj production company, it shares Cuarón's approach to coming-of-age stories: insightful, respectful, and suffused with youthful whimsy and melancholy. Unlike most youth films, which use visual kinetics as a primary tool, director Fernando Eimbcke and DP Alexis Zabe use long, static shots to detail the action. This technique is undoubtedly due to a meager budget, and attempts to inject some ingenuity to this approach come across as pointlessly distracting -- a shot from inside an oven, a refrigerator, the television, and on a bookshelf. However as the action builds and the minutiae of the boys' day take meaning and shape, these shots form a visual corollary to bored adolescence teetering on the precipice of puberty in a cramped environment. Editor Mariana Rodríguez enhances the visuals with a stubbornly steady rhythm that enhances the few moments of fast-paced action -- when the characters shoot dinner plates with a BB gun, do group headstands, or stuff themselves with junk food. The film is most successful in Eimbcke's refreshing choice not to infuse his young characters with overwrought cynicism or precocious degeneracy. While the future of the children is uncertain, in a wonderful shift in the coming-of-age template Eimbcke gives Ulises, re-invigorated and stirred toward self-reflection by the teenagers, the unambiguously happy resolution. He turns a tacky painting of ducks, which Flama's parents are fighting over, into an effective symbol of the characters' desire for growth and change, the dangers and positive potentials that could result, and the role friends can play in guiding each other through life. His break from post-college lethargy is a touching conclusion to Duck Season's patchy, but multi-layered tale of how long it can take to grow up. ~ Michael Buening, All Movie Guide