L.A. Latino

Billiards

Carambola (Mexico)

By ROBERT KOEHLER

A La Ultima y Nos Vamos release (in Mexico) of a Conaculte/Foprocine/New Art Digital production. (International sales: Imcine, Mexico City.) Produced by Kurt Hollander. Co-producers, Rocio Mireles, Eduardo Cemaj. Directed, written by Kurt Hollander.
 
With: Daniel Martinez, Jesus Ochoa, Diego Luna, Laura Hidalgo.
 

The adage "Be careful what you wish for..." serves as a warning in Kurt Hollander's "Billiards," a rocky, raucous roundelay of urban characters located in a Mexico City billiards hall. Hollander's vid and 16mm cameras create a hyper-mobile interior setting percolating a series of betrayals and turnabouts by people who can't help but be hustlers. Mid-November opening in Mexico could prompt some modest theatrical expansion in Latin America, and, with Diego Luna in prominent support, perhaps offers from buyers in El Norte.

Pool hustler El Vago (an engaging, world-weary Daniel Martinez) is the new owner of an old-time billiards hall, and is making a how-to vid with assistant El Perro (Luna). El Perro is frequently distracted by sexy g.f. La Pajara (a highly effective Laura Hidalgo), the daughter of El Mexicano (Jesus Ochoa), who used to own the joint until El Vago won it in a game. El Vago doesn't count on El Perro's ambitious plans for making over the venerable place, first by creating dance nights with colored lights and techno music.

Hollander takes visual cues from graphic comics (where the film's ideas were first worked over), including split screens, extreme wide-angles, a high-grain look and sharp angles on the billiard tables. But more cleverly, he uses the hall as a metaphorical social basket that takes in all sorts from the teeming city, from El Mexicano, who deals in "almost legal" goods, to El Perro's mounting criminality and aggressive youth culture networking, to El Vago's torn feelings between keeping things as they were and preserving the game while giving it an update.

El Perro finally goes too far when he makes a porn vid with La Pajara that El Mexicano inevitably sees, leading to some bloody business. The fun climax features a number of actual billiards masters in a championship tournament, layering a docu feeling over the thickly nourish tale.

Like a refugee from a John Huston film, Martinez' El Vago is a fine study of a man starting to lose his grip on life just at the moment he seems to have realized his dream. Ochoa's operator brims with skuzzy self-satisfaction, Hidalgo cleverly finds a fresh variation on the femme fatale, and Luna works against his affable image in a role ruled by duplicity.

Hardly ever stepping out into the Mexico City streets, pic's production package captures the feel of the massive burg. Hollander and editor Jorge Garcia make the right choice of not cutting during some stunning plays of ball and cue stick.

Camera (color, 16mm- and DV-to-35mm), Rafael Ortega; editor, Jorge Garcia; music, Alexis Ruiz, Juan Pablo Medina, Alejandro Contreras; production designer, Maria Jose Pizarro; sound (Dolby Digital), Julio Barcenas; sound designer, Christian Manzutto; visual effects supervisor, Alberto Rodriguez. Reviewed at Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, Oct. 28, 2005. (Also in Cannes Film Festival -- Special Screenings.) Running time: 85 MIN.