Duck Season (2004)

To me, this movie is perfection.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Fernando Eimbcke's Duck Season is rich in its character observation and details and light on its story's events and plot-progression; I don't know about you guys but I wouldn't have it any other way. At only eighty-seven minutes long, the film paints a beautiful image on the languidness of adolescence and how a lot can happen when a group of people are sitting around doing practically nothing while unsupervised for several hours. If this sounds like a certain American, eighties classic to you, then you're on the right track.The film captures one of the laziest Sundays I've ever seen that starts with two best friends, who lounge around in one of their own urban apartments in Mexico, when one of their mothers leaves for work. The two fourteen-year-old boys - Flama (Daniel Miranda) and Moko (Diego Cataño) - carefully split a bottle of Coca-Cola before sitting on the couch playing Halo. When the power inexplicably goes out, the two are left to their own wits to entertain themselves. They find company by the name of Rita (Danny Perea), a girl who states she's sixteen-years-old and arrives claiming her oven doesn't work and needs to bake herself a cake that will only take about fifteen minutes. She spends the time ruffling through the boys' kitchen while they sit on the couch and look to order a pizza, half mushroom, half salami, just the way they like it.When the pizza driver, Ulises (Enrique Arreola), arrives just a few seconds late of his thirty minute deadline, the boys refuse to pay him. Ulises won't leave without the money, meaning he isn't going anywhere, despite the boys firm in their jurisdiction not to pay him. Ulises agrees to play Flama in a soccer video game when the power comes back on for a brief time, but even after practically winning, he still finds himself without the cash. The argument isn't about money, we can shortly tell, but it's because there needs to be something to argue about and the boys need to feel like they're taking a firm-but-fair stance on something.This day continues on, with the quartet of misfits lackadaisically sitting around the apartment, talking endlessly about nothing incredibly significant, looking through cartoon pornography, talking intimately about their homelives, and learning about each other. Why am I rating this so high if I'm elaborating on so little and sounding rather unenthusiastic through my typing? Because this film is about as exciting as living one of these lazy Sundays we're all incredibly aware of, whether we spend the day laying on the couch or in bed, listlessly looking through our phones, watching TV, going online, or doing whatever we may be.Director Eimbcke, who also co-wrote the film with Paula Markovitch, understands the dreary days of adolescence, where almost nothing but video games, sugary soda, pornography, and pizza make any sense. The kind of day where you sit in a cloud of monotonous funk that hovers of you and serves as a bad case of laziness. What Eimbcke and Markovitch also understand are the directionless - but sometimes incredibly significant - conversations you and your friends may have that could go on to have a strong impact on you as a person. That is what Duck Season is an ode to - those conversations you'll look back on.Shot on an identifiable shoestring budget, with no-name actors, it's remarkable to say how many aesthetic attributes Duck Season bears to make it more than your average independent film. Wisely shot in black and white to emphasize essence more than color detail, the film's cinematographical work by Alexis Zabe is sublime, as it focuses on the steady-static shot and sharp camera angles over sloppily-photographed camera-work. To combine that, Eimbcke utilizes medium-length shots that are just long enough to establish mood and environmental detail but just short enough so boredom doesn't set in. If you feel your eyes wandering throughout the screen you watch Duck Season on and your mind maybe drifting a bit, congratulations, you're becoming one of the main characters.Aside from a few tonal inconsistencies that really jog the film's one-setting timeline, Duck Season is an interesting and investing piece of work. It shows the desire for companionship amongst adolescence and the true effect a lazy Sunday (or, in this film's case, "un Domingo perizoso") can have on a gaggle of different individuals; think of The Breakfast Club with a Hispanic cast and you have a marvelous, underrated work of art.Starring: Daniel Miranda, Diego Cataño, Danny Perea, Enrique Arreola, and Carolina Politi. Directed by: Fernando Eimbcke.

I am not surprised that the under 18 crowd gives this movie a better rating than adults. Basically this is a story of children surviving the mistakes of their parents. The boys, and Rita, are heroes (niños héroes), survivors of the modern phenomenon of being on their own, essentially restricted to home when not at school. Their imaginations are confined to indoor activities, lazy ones: for the boys, playing video games, and for Rita, imagining adulthood, which includes cooking. It becomes obvious that Rita has never done any cooking. The film begins with a quick panoramic view of where the action will take place. Significantly, the playground swings close to the apartment building will not be part of the movie's set. Then the camera focuses on the particular apartment block of the 3 children. It's name is "Niños Héroes". In 1847 the US invaded Mexico ("from the Halls of Moctezuma…" the Mexican- American War). In Mexico City the last defense was the Military Academy. The US prevailed and the 6 teenage cadets, "los niños héroes" died. At the time Mexico's 'adults', i.e. the government, was a total disaster; Santa Ana was again the President. The title "Temporada de patos" or "Duck Season" also reflects this historic assault by a large adult army on a group, 'flock', of children, 'ducks'. The movie has a lot of laughs, and does not, unlike the history of the "niños héroes" end in tragedy. Kids can be survivors. The pizza delivery guy saves the painting of their flight, their survival.

We've all seen movies that just portray Mexico as one of the poorest countries in the world and have its people usually situated like "Speedy Gonzalez"-like carefree people with very short tempers.While it is somewhat true for some regions (or the most part, it all depends), that's not the representation of Mexico as a whole. This movie is closer to what me, my friends, and (some of my) relatives live like: normal people who just like to kick back, play videogames, have a coke, and just have fun with everyday life. They just happen to live in Mexico (and I just happen to live in America in my part because of my grandparents). That's really all it is.Of course, like any art film, the movie goes a little beyond your typical Sunday afternoon. The two main kids, Flama and Mako, are just trying to spend the entire day killing time and they are eventually accompanied by Rita (Flama's next door neighbor who just needed to borrow the kitchen) and Ulises (A pizza delivery guy, with a heart of gold, who stays with the gang because of pay disputes over a pizza Flama and Mako ordered in the beginning).But, unlike your REAL typical Sunday, everything just gets chaotic within that 9 hour time-span. So inevitably, the characters eventually flesh out their true colors, often get into discussions about how animals act, why they are in the mess they are in, and how their fast friendship eventually became something worth more than just borrowing a kitchen to make a cake or pay disputes over a pizza.The name "Duck Season" will become pretty apparent in the middle and towards the end, I thought it was truly symbolic and clever the way they used the theme. Some of the jokes are funny (some even funnier if you listen to the slang they pull at each other), some of the situations can get really deep to a point where you know the character's true desires, and in the end...you just can't help but sit back and wish for more!I'll end this saying the Black and White style fits the film perfectly (especially in a few scenes, which would've been hellish to retake without the B&W filter) but the ending...well, like I said, it left me wanting for a little more. Many of the camera angles are well done, but in my opinion, they should've laid off the fade in/fade out a little bit (I mean, my poor eyes...). And I have to hand it to them...i'm glad they actually depicted videogames in a more REALISTIC fashion; its not just two kids smashing their poor controllers to hell in a ONE player game *cough*charliesangles*cough*, you've got Halo and what I *think* is FIFA (correct me if i'm wrong). I hope more directors will pick up the trend soon if they want to make their films seem a little more realistic when they include videogames.Overall, a good film and a must see!

Wednesday March 22, 7:00pm The Varsity"We four are like The Beatles." "They were all men!" "John Lennon was a woman."How much mischief can two bored fourteen-year-olds get into on a Sunday afternoon? In Fernando Eimbcke's Duck Season, Moko spends the day at the apartment his best friend Flama, minus adult supervision. Together they busy themselves with the activities of average middle-class teenagers, playing video games, eating junk food, wreaking a little havoc and causing a little property damage. The cute (and slightly older) neighbor girl Rita comes over to "borrow" the oven. This results in one burnt cake, one that is inedible and hilarious sexual jousting with younger Moko. The boys stiff the pizza delivery guy who refuses to leave without payment but really wants any excuse to escape his dead-end job. Filmed in a cinematic style that makes effective use of wide-angle photography in confined spaces, this is a film that cleverly creates something from nothing. Duck Season is sweet and warmly amusing without a hint of pretense.