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David Hudson
The Daily is written by David Hudson -- contact him at thedaily (at) ifc dot com.
Berlinale. "Gigante"
By David Hudson on 02/08/2009
Most of the action in Adrián Biniez's "Gigante" is set in a sprawling supermarket in Montevideo, Uruguay, and much of it is seen via the surveillance cameras security guard Jara (Horacio Camandule) monitors on the night shift. Jara's into heavy metal and works weekends as a bouncer at the local disco, but at heart, he's a gentle giant whose routine is finally broken up the night he spots one of the women in an army of supermarket floor-moppers accidently knock over a tower of paper towels. The sight's good for a laugh until her boss waddles over and threatens to fire her. Suddenly, he's got a distressed damsel and a dragon to slay.
So he keeps an eye out for her via those cameras and eventually begins following her around after work as well. On paper, this obsessiveness would seem to border on stalking, but on the screen, we can see that he's simply too shy to walk up and try out a pickup line. Well, the story pretty much goes the way you'd expect, but the humor is so pleasantly understated and Jara is such a likable big fella that you don't mind rolling with it. "Gigante" was met with warm - not wildly enthusiastic, mind you - but warm and well-deserved applause.
Jay Weissberg, writing in Variety, finds it "fails to inject freshness into a one-sided tale." More from Screen: "It's all low-key stuff: a bit more punch wouldn't have hurt."
[Photo: "Gigante," Ctrl Z Films, 2009]
Tags: Adrián Biniez, Berlinale 2009, Gigante, Horacio Camandule- Permalink
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