(Some may feel this comment contains spoilers, but that would be hard to do with this type of film.)
If there were ever a film that could be used as the dictionary definition for a "slice of life" film Parapalos (or Pin Boy) would be it. I just saw this film over the weekend at the 48th San Francisco International Film Festival and as the catalog description there puts it: "nothing happens". Please don't take that to mean this film is boring, I never once felt bored or wondering when it would end. I was always fully engrossed in this examination of life at the fringe. The lead actor, Adrián Suárez in his debut (I believe), gives a memorable performance as a young man recently moved to the big city and taking a menial job as a pin boy in one of the last manually operated bowling alleys in Buenos Aires.
We are told from the beginning during his physical by the off-screen doctor that his new job is a dangerous and grueling one. This is reinforced by his fellow pin boy co-workers. The director uses this expectation of danger to give the film it's dramatic tension, but like life itself, nothing much happens besides work and sleep. Adrián Suárez shows great promise since he remains on screen for nearly the entire film, the camera constantly keeping an eye on him even while we here the other actors around him tell their stories. The camera follows this young man through his daily routine in a way that the overly scripted "reality TV" could never capture.
By concentrating our attention directly on the one actor while activity and speech occur all around him we can view this character as emblematic of what is. But what is, is also changing. The aging self-described hippie is sometimes now a punk. The manual bowling alley is only half the space, the other half has already been converted to machine. The lead character has moved from his rural home to the big city. In one of the final scenes with Adrián Suárez and Nancy Torres, who plays the cousin he shares an apartment/bed with, they are sitting in the evening, doing a cross-word puzzle. He stares out into the heavens noting that in the city fewer stars can be seen, and she reminds him, and us, that the stars themselves don't necessarily even exist any more. It is just their light that continues to shine long after they have disappeared.
This is what cinema is. We sit in darkened theatres watching the flickering light of images. But those moments captured on film are gone now, those people have moved on, grown older, maybe even they are dead, but to us the image remains a living testament to what was, to life itself, burning brightly before us. Life as Ms. Poliak sees it is poetic and moving. In a gorgeous shot (the one time the setting is outside) on the roof the camera follows our everyman as he circles the roof playing with a new harmonica. In this very tightly controlled pan as the actor circles around coming into extreme close-up and walking away again the focus and camera remains tightly on him, always keeping your attention on him. This could not have been an easy shot to set up since the roof is neither very large, nor was there any edit to allow for change of position of the camera. The camera in-fact seems to remain fixed in place, just turning as the actor moves around, coming close, moving away, but always in focus.
In the end, as the other commenters prove, this film is not going to appeal to everyone, but if you go in not expecting an "action" film; if you don't need your films to be just entertainments to distract you, I think you will find this one worthy of a view.
If there were ever a film that could be used as the dictionary definition for a "slice of life" film Parapalos (or Pin Boy) would be it. I just saw this film over the weekend at the 48th San Francisco International Film Festival and as the catalog description there puts it: "nothing happens". Please don't take that to mean this film is boring, I never once felt bored or wondering when it would end. I was always fully engrossed in this examination of life at the fringe. The lead actor, Adrián Suárez in his debut (I believe), gives a memorable performance as a young man recently moved to the big city and taking a menial job as a pin boy in one of the last manually operated bowling alleys in Buenos Aires.
We are told from the beginning during his physical by the off-screen doctor that his new job is a dangerous and grueling one. This is reinforced by his fellow pin boy co-workers. The director uses this expectation of danger to give the film it's dramatic tension, but like life itself, nothing much happens besides work and sleep. Adrián Suárez shows great promise since he remains on screen for nearly the entire film, the camera constantly keeping an eye on him even while we here the other actors around him tell their stories. The camera follows this young man through his daily routine in a way that the overly scripted "reality TV" could never capture.
By concentrating our attention directly on the one actor while activity and speech occur all around him we can view this character as emblematic of what is. But what is, is also changing. The aging self-described hippie is sometimes now a punk. The manual bowling alley is only half the space, the other half has already been converted to machine. The lead character has moved from his rural home to the big city. In one of the final scenes with Adrián Suárez and Nancy Torres, who plays the cousin he shares an apartment/bed with, they are sitting in the evening, doing a cross-word puzzle. He stares out into the heavens noting that in the city fewer stars can be seen, and she reminds him, and us, that the stars themselves don't necessarily even exist any more. It is just their light that continues to shine long after they have disappeared.
This is what cinema is. We sit in darkened theatres watching the flickering light of images. But those moments captured on film are gone now, those people have moved on, grown older, maybe even they are dead, but to us the image remains a living testament to what was, to life itself, burning brightly before us. Life as Ms. Poliak sees it is poetic and moving. In a gorgeous shot (the one time the setting is outside) on the roof the camera follows our everyman as he circles the roof playing with a new harmonica. In this very tightly controlled pan as the actor circles around coming into extreme close-up and walking away again the focus and camera remains tightly on him, always keeping your attention on him. This could not have been an easy shot to set up since the roof is neither very large, nor was there any edit to allow for change of position of the camera. The camera in-fact seems to remain fixed in place, just turning as the actor moves around, coming close, moving away, but always in focus.
In the end, as the other commenters prove, this film is not going to appeal to everyone, but if you go in not expecting an "action" film; if you don't need your films to be just entertainments to distract you, I think you will find this one worthy of a view.
