Duck Season Review
Alfonso Cuaron has led something of a charmed life thus far, his involvement on a film being a virtual guarantee of quality and the man himself now universally recognized as a master of the teen coming of age film. Though Fernando Eimbcke’s Duck Season doesn’t quite have the energy of a Cuaron directed effort it is dead simple to see what drew him to a producer’s role on this low key tale of a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Flama and Moko, fourteen year old best friends, plan to spend their Sunday the same way they do every week, loading up on junk food and playing video games at Flama’s place while his parents are away. But their plan develops a major problem when the power goes out, rendering the video game plan moot. The duo becomes a trio when Flama’s sixteen year old neighbor Rita drops in unannounced to bake a cake, and then a quartet when the pizza delivery man simply refuses to leave after the boys refuse to pay him for being eleven seconds over the thirty minute guarantee.
With the power out all of the normal electronic distractions are removed and over the span of the day the four are forced to – gasp! – actually get to know one another and different layers to each of the characters slowly unfold. Flama is dealing with anger surrounding his parents’ ongoing break up, Moko is struggling with nascent gay tendencies, Rita is baking herself a cake at Flama’s house because her family has forgotten that today is her birthday, pizza man feels trapped in a useless job in a city he hates by the need to take care of an elderly aunt. It’s a lot to process but Eimbcke handles it with a light touch, a graceful script, and a generous helping of pot brownies.
Beautifully shot in black and white Eimbcke’s cast is solid if not spectacular with the film shot in a fairly naturalistic style with only occasional stylistic flourishes. The straight forward style means that the film can drag a bit in places being, as it is, nothing more than four people spending the day sitting around an apartment and filling the time as best they can. But while it could stand to have a little more zip the characters ring remarkably true.
The soon to be released DVD features an excellent anamorphic transfer of the film with the original Spanish soundtrack and optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, but nothing else beyond the theatrical trailer.
