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EL
BOLA
6/10
aka Pellet
: Spain 2000 : Achero MANAS : 90 mins
Admirers of
Manas’s dazzlingly original, boisterously energetic second feature November
may be surprised to find that his debut is such a conventional treatment
of a standard-issue topic: the tough life of a battered child. Problematic
childhood (preferably violent and/or poverty-stricken) has long been the
most sure-fire subject-matter for aspiring ‘world cinema’ directors trying
to raise funds for their projects, not least because this kind of material
is usually catnip for film-awards juries. And El Bola duly mopped
up at the 2000 Goyas (Spain’s Oscar equivalent), winning Best Picture,
Best New Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best New Actor – the latter
going to the film’s young star Juan Jose Ballesta.
Ballesta is
solid as Pablo, an 11-year-old known as ‘El Bola’ or ‘Pellet’ for the
ballbearing lucky charm he carries with him at all times. Not that Pablo
seems to get much in the way of good luck – he’s relentlessly bullied
by his short-tempered father Mariano (Manuel Moron), who’s never gotten
over the death of his first-born son. Mariano’s irrational resentment
towards Pablo takes increasingly violent forms – until the parents of
Pablo’s new best friend Alfredo (Pablo Galan) feel moved to intervene…
Well-acted
and convincingly accurate in its presentation of bored pre-teen Madrid
youth, El Bola barely puts a foot wrong: Juan Carlos Gomez’s cinematography
is a plus, and for the most part Eduardo Arbide’s score adds to the mood,
with only a couple of intrusive moments. Manas deserves credit for tackling
such an important social ill – the results are often harrowing, and mercifully
much less crude and predictable than, say, Iciar Bollain’s battered-wife
drama Te Doy
Mis Ojos, November’s vastly inferior (but inexplicably
prize-garlanded) rival in the Competition at the 2003 San Sebastian Film
Festival. But, like Bollain, Manas never tackles the fundamental and lingering
problem of violent machismo that ruins the lives of so many Spanish
families. This is ultimately a rather low-key treatment of a slightly
over-familiar theme – anyone who’s heard Suzanne Vega’s song ‘Luka’ will
know exactly what to expect.
7th November,
2003
(seen on DVD, same day)
by Neil
Young
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