| In a knock-out feature film
debut, Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke transforms an ordinary apartment
into an expanding universe of emotions and experience. Two teenage boys
are doing their usual Sunday home-alone thing playing videogames and downing
giant bottles of sodas. When the power goes out, the slightly older girl
next door comes by to use their oven to make herself a birthday cake - which
incorporates a secret ingredient - and a thirty-something pizza deliveryman
is inspired by the laissez-faire ambiance to take stock of his strange life.
The humor, which ranges from deadpan to sidesplitting, is laced with melancholy,
tenderness, and heartbreak. Eimbcke creates his "magical mystery tour"
on a shoestring budget. He has a genius for framing images, and his odd
camera angles and peculiar sound effects pay off in a transcendent climax.
While the exceptionally lively actors seem to be making it up as they go
along, the film's underpinning is its marvelous script by Eimbcke and his
writing partner, Paula Markovich. (Amy Taubin)
2004 AFI Fest: Winner
Grand Jury Prize
2005 Ariel Awards,
Mexico: Winner FIPRESCI Prize, Mayahuel Award for Best Actor, Best Actress,
Best Art Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Original Score
Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Producer: Lemore Syvan
Screenwriters: Fernando Eimbcke, Paula Markovitch
Screenwriter Paula
Markovitch has among her credits the screenplays for LIGERITA (2003),
AL BORDE (1998) and ELISA ANTES DEL FIN DEL MUNDO (1997). She wrote the
story for SIN REMITENTE and directed her first feature, PERRIFERICO, in
1999.
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