Barrio

Decent drama/comedy/melodrama about three 15 year old best friends growing up in Madrid's Barrio. Well intended, never boring, but not quite enough of anything.

Not gritty or real enough to work as neo-realism -- it's hard to believe 15 year old street boys are as naive as these characters about sex and life itself – they sometimes come off like they should be pre-teens, or part of the far more protected classes.

The acting is solid, and the banter between the kids has a real, often funny feel, but that's not enough to transcend. And the number of convenient melodramatic twists finally overloads the last third, and makes it hard to be really moved.

Well shot and intelligent, I just wish it was deeper, or funnier, or something. Grew a bit on 2nd viewing, but not enough to own a copy for me.

"Barrio" is the sort of film that comes from the suburbs, does extremely well, and deserves to do so, too. The poster sums the film up very well: a jetski parked and chained to a lamppost in a suburb of Madrid, a good 170 miles from the sea. It seems to capture the very funny nature of the film, but also the tragedy of it all: there's absolutely no way that the jetski is going to get used, and similarly, Rai, Javi and Manu aren't going to get out of the suburbs and fulfill their full potential.

"Barrio" (meaning "neighbourhood" or "suburb") was well received in Spain, and definitely deserves to go on a wider release, but it probably won't, if you will forgive a little gripe about foreign film distribution. There's absolutely no way that films like "Jingle All the Way" and "Batman and Robin" should have loads of money poured into them and then be released only for people to find out they're dire, when films like this should be seen by many more people. Grrrr. I guess the point is that if you're a film distributor who happens to be reading this, wise up. And if you're somebody who wouldn't give a foreign language film a chance (unlikely you'd be reading this, but never mind) - you're missing out on far too much.

I was warned by many Spanish people that I wouldn't understand a lot of the dialogue, because a lot of it was in suburban slang - but strangely, I found it one of the easiest films to understand, possibly because most of the characters spoke rather slowly. It's hard to single out somebody for individual merit because the movie fits so well together, and one gets the impression it was a great collaborative effort. Certainly the acting is consistently impressive and the direction is great because you can't see joins, to quote Morcambe and Wise.

Added to all of this, the soundtrack is great; it provides a good flavour of Spanish music, without managing to sound clichéd or tired. There's even an impressive dancing goat. (Yes, even better than the goat in "Muertos de Risa"). What more could one want from a film?

This was a very enjoyable film showing three boys, and a girl growing up in Madrid.

They all came from working class families and all families had some degree of dysfunction.

In one, the parents and children were constantly sniping at each other. The daughter (Marieta Orozco) constantly made remarks under her breath, but her brother (Timy Benito) was more open about their father. It was very funny despite the problems in the home.

The three boys spent time learning things about life, their city and it's underbelly, and about sex. Like most teens, they wanted to get laid. It was fascinating and funny as they pursued their dreams.

Make no mistake, this wasn't a Porky's. It was an outstanding film by Fernando León de Aranoa. and makes me want to see more of his work; and more of Orozco.

I really didn't like this movie when I first saw it. In retrospect, I am a little more forgiving, but not much.

The reason I actually gave this movie a 5/10 is that the concept was really, really good: three youths in urban Madrid seem to have little or no chance in the larger world, because of factors completely beyond their control. The environment these boys live in is devastating to think about, because it neglects so many things about them and the world they live in, yet they can't even perceive this deficiency precisely because of that deficiency.

Now, if you're thinking this sounds good, you're right. But the actual movie is not that good. While there are a few scenes that really shine(especially the final one which quite literally has a young man "trying to walk the straight and narrow"), the majority of this movie is interminably slow, with no sense of direction whatsoever. It almost felt like I was watching a very badly edited documentary. In fairness, I think I might have lost some of the more sophisticated elements of the film given that I haven't spent a lot of time around Madrid's urban slang, but the language gap wasn't so large that it could possibly explain the deficiencies of this film.

Barrio is as real as life. Everything is not all right. A very good job.