The Balloons movie review

Mariano Gonzalez�s gritty unmarried-father drama picked up the international Critics� Award at Argentina�s Mar del Plata fest.
The shadow of the early Dardenne brothers' paintings floats over Mariano Gonzalez�s tough, lean debut Balloons, which fuses a rely-of-reality documentary style with emotional punch in telling the tale of a person forced to face as much as fatherhood. absolutely eschewing sentimentality and presenting a principal individual who in his inarticulateness is easier to sympathize with than to like, this is one of these pent-up films wherein the protagonist cries handiest once, however when it comes, it's massive, and cathartic for man or woman and target market alike. both situation depend and remedy are difficult, but Gonzalez�s attentiveness to the truthfulness of the movie�s emotional undertow make him a director and performer to watch. competition sidebars with an eye for brand new Latino abilties could nicely invite Balloons to their birthday celebration.

Cesar (Gonzalez, a theater director making his film debut right here) has been in rehab for two years and is now working in a run-down balloon manufacturing facility: much time is dedicated to the charming business of the way these items, possibly too manifestly symbolic, are made. (hardly ever in cinema can party balloons had been employed in one of these downbeat manner; one early scene has Cesar�s assistant checking them as he tonelessly repeats �punctured � punctured �� as although it had been a touch upon the characters� lives.)

Taciturn and hard-hewn each bodily and emotionally, wearing an unexplained scar on his left cheekbone like a struggle wound, submit-rehab Cesar continues himself furiously busy for fear of questioning too much. while no longer making balloons, he�s angrily exorcizing more than one demons by doing crossfit to the sound of thrash metal or striking out and joylessly napping with barwoman Laura (Jimena Anganuzzi), who seems simplest barely less numb than he is.

one of the things that Cesar doesn�t need to contemplate is that he has a 4-12 months-antique boy, Alfonso (Alfonso Gonzalez Lesca, the director�s real-existence son), whose mom died in a car crash and who�s now being taken care of by means of her dad and mom, one in every of them being The Blonde man (Roberto Jose Gonzalez, Gonzalez�s actual-life father, who unluckily died quickly after filming). Cesar is advised that, because the getting old couple can now not enhance Alfonso, he�ll ought to take him lower back. Cesar makes a pathetic try to influence Laura that he might assist him out however is rejected with a simple �No,� and decides at hand Alfonso to a wealthy couple for adoption.

whilst his father-in-law hears about this, he walks up to Cesar and wordlessly punches him inside the jaw, breaking it: this is the film�s pivotal scene. it is a comment on Cesar as a father and, understanding he is in no psychological or social country to raise a infant, he'll spend the rest of the movie torn about a way to take care of it.

handheld digicam from Argentine maestro Fernando Lockett is in-your-face, and indeed in the characters� faces as nicely, traumatic as it is to sign up each flicker on the capabilities of the terminally impassive Cesar with a purpose to deliver a few sort of manual to what this privately very scared man is sincerely questioning. Like every body else inside the film, Cesar is unable to articulate what's occurring to him, and it falls to the viewer to reflect at the principal troubles of fatherhood and duty that the movie raises. A traditional unreconstructed male, Cesar had possibly been awaiting his wife to raise Alfonso, and is pretty unprepared for another outcome. The movie's large "if" is whether or not he will eventually be able to take this undesirable take a look at of his capability as a man and as a father.

Gonzalez does quality paintings in growing to the self-imposed task of slowly unveiling what's taking place behind his individual�s stony facade as he struggles to make feel of it all. It�s a controlled and nervy overall performance of tremendous depth, presenting few crumbs to the viewer in the manner of easy identity. The movie is indeed little more than a rather painful person have a look at, and some scenes -� in particular the ones in semi-darkness -� do drag on for too long as Cesar puffs interminably away on one of the cigarettes he usually seems to be smoking. also on the disadvantage, a touch too much effort is required to make experience of the a couple of plot ellipses, suggesting that no matter its occasional longueurs, Balloons could have been blown up a bit bigger with out exploding.

manufacturing businesses: los angeles Cueva del Chanco, Los Salvajes
cast: Mariano Gonzalez, Alfonso Gonzalez Lesca, Juan Martin Viale, Jimena Anganuzzi
Director-screenwriter: Mariano Gonzalez
manufacturers: Mariano Gonzalez, Paolo Donizetti, Juan Schnitman
executive producer: Ivan Granovsky
Director of images: Fernando Lockett
production designer: Julieta Dolinsky
costume fashion designer: Paola Delgado
Editors: Santiago Esteves, Delfina Castagnino, Mariano Gonzalez
sales: Kino Bureau