With "Bullet in the Head" Jaime Rosales has made a film that is told entirely in images. There is a lot talking in the picture but none of it is heard; he is keeping his audience at a distance, both literally and metaphorically, allowing us to see events unfold but keeping us far enough away that we can't hear what the characters are saying. What we do hear is the background noise of everyday life. This is 'realism' gone overboard. Often the film feels like a documentary, like something Frederick Wiseman might have made but with all dialogue removed.
You may ask what the point of it all is. Why tease us like this? Why set up situations in which we can play no part? In actuality would we be interested enough in any of these people to want to spend this amount of time just looking at them? But then consider how often we may have looked at someone on a bus or on a train or simply walking down the street and wondered what might be going on in their lives? How often have we simply looked at strangers on a regular basis and felt we knew them? Of course, sustaining our interest is the problem. Since for about three quarters of the film's length nothing actually 'happens' this relatively short film, (85 minutes), might seem interminable and it's clearly aimed at the kind of art-house audience who will 'put up with it', forcing themselves to go along with what is clearly an experimental film.
As well as a lack of dialogue there is also no music score though Rosales does at least give us a single central character to follow. The title, of course, provides the clue and that's what keeps us watching. Audiences will always hold on when there's an anticipation of violence though any synopsis of the film that might suggest a thriller is clearly misleading. This certainly won't be to everyone's taste but it does represent the work of a bold and innovative filmmaker who remains shamefully undervalued. Cinema needs more artists like Rosales.
