Don't Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl (2017)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Like the one other reviewer thus far, I too was left angry and frustrated by this film, but for a completely different reason: because the director accomplished exactly what I think he set out to do, and did it well.Young love is shown in a modern way, without the archaic (and today, pretentious) formality of Shakespeare. Instead we see the very believable silliness and stupidity of a young teen's infatuation - it needs no reason to exist, it simply does. The slightly older, slightly more life-experienced girl does not know what to make of this goofy, gentle foreigner from the other side of the bridge, and her reactions vary as she tries to balance curiosity, cultural pressure, self-interest, and perhaps some affection.And the director plops this budding flower of a tale into a steaming, fetid pile of modern adult reality, a world in which the Montagues and Capulets would come across as urbane and civil, a world less of Romeo and more of Tromeo. Our world. Racism, macho misogyny, and acceptance of psychopathic violence as the norm, these headline a chorus of social ills that make a normal childhood impossible.It hurts to watch the story unfold. It should.Regarding overall quality, it's not fantastic, but more than adequate. Despite a setting and culture unfamiliar to many of us -- here in middle America, Brazilian-Paraguayan history is absolutely never brought to mind -- the people and events of Don't Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl are believable, familiar by type from the hourly news cycle or one's own experience. For myself, at least, the modern setting intensifies this tale's emotional impact in a way that a historical or fantasy setting wouldn't; a somewhat straightforward delivery makes the impact more tolerable.And the story is interesting enough. What becomes of Joca and Basano's young love in this environment? It's worth your while to watch and find out.

I'm going to preface this review by saying that of the films that I saw at the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival, this was my least favorite. It frustrated me, made me angry, and yet, I couldn't stop thinking about how angry and frustrated it made me, so in retrospect this may be a selling point. Take that as you will.So, an excruciatingly terrible title aside, the film is essentially Romeo and Juliet meets West Side Story with twelve-year olds - crossed with Stand By Me meets Beasts of the Southern Wild. Don't Swallow My Heart Alligator Girl suffers from a full blown identity crisis as far as what kind of film it wants to be - be it a coming of age tale, a magical- realism fantasy, a gang rivalry thriller, a family drama - before finally deciding "screw it" and trying to be all of them at once.The end result? It's a complete mess. The film tries to do too many things all at once and never stays focused long enough for you to care. It blends relatively nuanced family/sibling drama with magical realism and tween romance and also gang warfare but also historical supernatural feuds - none of it gels. It's so set on bringing you all of these different ideas that it forgets to fully develop any of them. Cauã Reymond delivers the best performance in the film whereas the two young leads are precocious and completely insufferable - despite the fact that they are supposed to carry the bulk of the emotional backstory. I never cared about them, and at over two hours, the film is a complete slog from beginning to end.The entire film is set in a dingy town with a very limited color palate, and unfortunately there is never a sense of place about the town either. At least when the two kids meet at night there is a variance in look somewhat - the sky is captured as a hazy dark blue with fireflies glowing all around. Overall, it looks fine - visually, but there's nothing particularly dynamic about it. Don't Swallow My Heart Alligator Girl feels like bits and pieces from completely different movies cobbled together, with a flimsy framework of a plot to tie them together. The film shoots for the stars and deserves points for trying something different, but none of the film's disparate elements feel cohesive.