Eimbcke makes the most of his enclosed space and eager cast to string together a series of droll vignettes that eventually add up to a satisfying and touching story.
Duck Season (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:72
Fresh:65
Rotten:7
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: This modest cinematic slice-of-life manages to subtly capture many small but resonant and truthful moments of adolescence.
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: With DUCK SEASON, writer/director Fernando Eimbcke lovingly brings a touching tale to life. Shot in black-and-white and on a minuscule budget, Eimbcke's film is a slice-of-life comedy that takes... With DUCK SEASON, writer/director Fernando Eimbcke lovingly brings a touching tale to life. Shot in black-and-white and on a minuscule budget, Eimbcke's film is a slice-of-life comedy that takes place over the course of one day in a Mexico City apartment. Flama (Daniel Miranda) and Moko (Diego Catano) are two bored teenagers who plan a day of unsupervised fun together in Flama's mother's humble abode. Videogames, Coca-Cola, and pizza are high on their list of priorities, but things don't quite go according to plan. First, a slightly older female neighbor, Rita (Danny Perea), arrives to bake a cake in the kitchen. Then the pizza man arrives and the boys challenge him to a soccer videogame as payment for the food. But when the power in the building cuts out mid-game the fun really starts as the foursome argue, clown around, and do anything they can to stave off the boredom that threatens to engulf them. Ostensibly a comedy, Eimbcke's beautifully shot movie also presents some thoughtful musings on teenage life. Flama's parents are going through a painful divorce--a subject he tentatively broaches with the others by showing them a painting of ducks that his mother and father both want to claim as their own. From here the movie takes a pleasant stroll into the adolescent psyches of its four characters, with the group devouring Rita's marijuana-laced cake and wandering into delicious dreamlike states which reveal their naive hopes and dreams. Although stylistically reminiscent of the earliest works by filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch and Kevin Smith, DUCK SEASON conjures up a world all of its own, and is a welcome introduction to the cinematic mind of Fernando Eimbcke. [More]
Starring: Enrique Arreola, Diego Catano, Daniel Miranda, Danny Perea
Starring: Enrique Arreola, Diego Catano, Daniel Miranda, Danny Perea, Carolina Politi
Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Screenwriter: Paula Markovitch, Fernando Eimbcke
Producer: Jamie Bernardo Ramos
Composer: Alejandro Rosso
Studio: Warner Independent
Reviews for Duck Season
Further delicious evidence of the reviving fortunes of Latin American cinema.
These characters hilariously circle around each other ... tentatively reaching out to each other with surprising results.
A sweet, charming film about friendship and the pangs of adolescence, enhanced by gorgeous black and white photography and four splendid performances.
Despite its tiny canvas, Duck Season soars with all the profundity and inanity of teenage life; the tenderness, the isolation, and the doomed joy of its innocent irresponsibility.
The modest film works best for the viewer who goes with its flow of inertia.
Duck Season is definitely worth seeing, but mostly it is worth seeing past, into the future of a promising new filmmaker.
A nuanced, authentic portrait of adolescent ennui and maturation that treats pre-teen emotions with a Jim Jarmusch-ian brand of detached sympathy and bemusement.
Lovingly cast, suavely directed and always pitched perfectly, whatever its tone, Duck Season is the kind of small, quiet, thoughtful movie that ought to be as abundant as Sunday afternoons.
Watch it passively and you might wonder how it even qualifies as a movie; watch it with your full attention and you will see a charming and surprisingly meaningful look at adolescent angst.
...for the viewer interested in an amusing, thoughtful, independent, slice-of-life film.
The fullness of Duck Season is in direct proportion to its smallness; its modesty makes it bloom.
Because it's shot in black and white, involves characters doing bland things in a bland setting, and yet is surprisingly entertaining, you could call this Clerks -- The Mexican Home Edition.
Effortlessly nonchalant in its observations of kids and the way the world looks to them.
Runs more on charm than inspiration, but it convincingly conveys something of the terrible, giddy solipsism of adolescence, with its contradictory longings for freedom and security...
Burn off 87 minutes of your sentence in Hell by sitting through writer-director Eimbcke's B&W dreary dreamscape about (his) a boy's gay awakening.
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