kagablog

Surging into full hormonal adolescence in the middle of nowhere is a subject freshman helmer Alexis Dos Santos knows all too well. “Glue” is informed by Dos Santos’ own youth spent in a Patagonian dullsville, where the emptiness of the environment creates an even wider staging ground for self-discovery. Pic captures adolescence replete with the sort of boring chatter and life musings teens think are profound. Tightening the running time could help unstick “Glue” from its festival lockup; pic nabbed the youth jury prize at Rotterdam.

Dos Santos found the perfect embodiment of the limbo stage of development in Nahuel Perez Biscayart (”Tatooed”), his 15-going-on-16 star who portrays Lucas. Not only is Lucas stuck in an isolated town, his home life is in a state of flux after mom Mecha (Veronica Llinas) threw dad (Hector Diaz) out for sleeping around.

Neither a complete dork nor Mr. Popularity, Lucas, with best friend Nacho (Nahuel Viale), practices with a band and hangs out. Unsurprisingly, sex is uppermost in their minds, and Lucas’ inchoate attraction to Nacho fuels the kinds of prankish games beloved by young teens worldwide.

Into the mix comes Andrea (Ines Efron), a bespectacled peer also trying to figure out how to release her newfound desires. Unwilling to participate in a reconciliatory family weekend away, Lucas convinces Nacho to join him at his father’s empty apartment in the city of Neuquen. Once there, a glue-sniffing marathon leads to a little fooling around.

Awkwardness, obsession with sex and homoeroticism have all been seen before in the context of growing up. But Dos Santos’ vision is one of the more honest ones, interweaving the objective and subjective (the latter with too-frequent Super 8 sequences) for a sympathetic portrait. Elements of the Dardenne brothers can be found in its neo-realist sections, but also the naturalism of Isabel Coixet, who exec produces here.

Grounding it all is Perez Biscayart’s magnetic perf. Eagerly examining his body for signs of burgeoning manhood, he’s both comfortable in his skin and slightly gangly, with heavy-lidded eyes aware of what’s around him yet sensing there’s something else out there.

In contrast, Nacho is barely given any defining elements, and Andrea seems artificially inserted. Her two diary-like inner monologues feel either like last-minute additions that throw the balance off, or remnants of a longer film (press kit says running time was 153 minutes) that need either further development or complete excision.

Visuals reveal a talented helmer in the early stages of his career: The overabundance of shaky Super 8 could be curtailed, and scenes moving in and out of focus serve little purpose.

Complementing his feel for landscape and adolescent desire, Dos Santos has a terrific sense of music and its importance in Lucas’ life. Especially welcome are early tracks from the Violent Femmes, certainly one of the most explicit incarnations of the inner anarchy of the teen years.

Camera (color, DV-to-35mm, Super8-to-35mm), Natasha Braier; editors, Dos Santos, Ida Bregninge, Leonardo Brzezicki; production designer, Nela Fasce; costume designer, Ana Press; sound, Fernando Soldevila; assistant director, Romina Guillen; casting, Camila Toker, Florencia Braier. Reviewed at Rotterdam Film Festival (competing), Feb. 1, 2006. (Also in Berlin Film Festival — market.) Running time: 115 MIN.

this review first published here