DUCK SEASON
Directed & Written by: Fernando Eimbcke.
Produced by: Christian Valdelièvre.
Director of photography: Alexis Zabé.
Edited by: Mariana Rodríguez.
Music by: Alejandro Rosso.
Released by: Warner Independent.
Country of Origin: Mexico. 85 min. Rated: R.
With: Enrique Arreola, Diego Cataño, Daniel Miranda & Danny Perea.

With no parents around, two best friends, teenagers Flama (Daniel Miranda) and Moko (Diego Cataño), have an entire free Sunday of videogames and pizza. But a neighbor, 16-year-old Rita (Danny Perea), comes to borrow the kitchen and begins baking a cake. Then the electricity goes out. After climbing eight flights, the pizza delivery man, a thirty-something college dropout, arrives 11 seconds late of the 30-minute guarantee, therefore the pizzas suppose to be free, except Ulises (Enrique Arreola) disagrees and threatens to sit in the living room until he’s paid. He and the boys decide to solve the problem by a soccer videogame – winner takes it all. And then the intermittent electricity goes out again, for good.

This is Duck Season, a leisurely-paced film shot in black and white with only four people doing some talking, some eating, some destroying of kitchen ware. It is easy to fall under its spell, as if we were spying on these unsuspecting people going on with their lives. It's also in part to the casting – the actors look their age, and that gives the acting authenticity.

Of course, it is not just the age. The four actors give nuanced performances, not so much acting but becoming their characters in such a way that they are completely believable. Their facial expressions and the expert way they handle the dialogue gives the film a sense of intimacy and realness that makes us care about what happens to each of them. This is very important in a film like this, dependant mostly on dialogue to get going. Films with special effects and great battles can always grab our attention by sheer size, yet Duck Season has to get every detail right; it is the little things that count.

In the end, the small details, along with the excellent dialogue and the flowing narrative, succeed: from the first scenes where the two boys divide their cokes in two glasses equally, quarter of an inch for quarter of an inch; through the rush of the videogame between the boys and Ulises; to the bragging and funny helplessness of the boys’ talk about French kissing and getting a girl, not to mention the consequences of eating a brownie with a “surprise” inside. Roxana Ramirez
March 10, 2006