Duck Season (2004)

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Fernando Eimbcke and Alfonso Cuaron Talk Duck Season

The director looks back at his first big time film and the man who made it all possible.

Mar 6, 2006

Critics Score

Release Date

October 22, 2004

Director

Fernando Eimbcke

Writers

Fernando Eimbcke
Paula Markovitch

Cast

Carolina Politi
Daniel Miranda
Diego Cataño
Danny Perea
Enrique Arreola
Antonio Zúñiga

Official Website

duckseasonmovie.com

Duck Season Synopsis

Sunday, 11 A.M.
Apartment 803
Ninos Heroes Building
Nonoalco Tlatelolco Housing Development

Best friends Flama (DANIEL MIRANDA) and Moko (DIEGO CATAÑO) have the apartment to themselves, and a glorious day of videogames and junk food awaits them. Having mastered the fine art of pouring the perfect glass of Coca Cola, the boys set up shop in front of the television with a big bowl of chips, ready for an afternoon of Halo on the X-box. The door buzzer interrupts their intense shootout. Rita (DANNY PEREA), Flama’s sixteen-year-old neighbor, wants to use his oven to bake a cake. Flama waves her away, then into the kitchen – she looks too determined to be brief -- intent on getting back to the game. The boys continue happily annihilating each other until…disaster. The power goes out.

After a few painfully idle moments, the boys move onto the next item on their agenda: ordering the pizza. Stopwatch at the ready, they call Telepizza, your friendly pizza, a place with a 30 minute guarantee. The race begins.

A delivery man on a motorcycle with a large pie (half mushroom, half salami) and two large Cokes winds his way through the streets of Mexico City and up eight flights on foot only to arrive at his destination 11 seconds late, according to Flama’s watch. As the power is restored to the building, a showdown of another sort ensues.

The pizza man Ulises (ENRIQUE ARREOLA) will not leave without payment, and the boys insistently invoke the Telepizza guarantee. When Ulises parks himself outside the apartment, Moko challenges him to videogame contest where the winner takes all – pizza and soda – and the loser, nothing. Ulises accepts.

As their fate is being decided by an old-school video soccer match, the unthinkable happens: the power goes out again, leaving the dispute unresolved. Unsatisfied, the stalemate is re-established, and Ulises calls in the delay to his boss.

Fighting off boredom, the four navigate their way through the unexpected turn of events. They entertain themselves by experimenting with the metric conversion of a chocolate cake recipe and the wish-fulfilling properties of multi-colored candies. Tentative banter leads to surprising observations, as the topic of conversation shifts to the strange behavior of adults. Together, the four contemplate a painting of ducks on the wall, which has become the source of a bitter power struggle between Flama’s parents, who are getting a divorce.

The restlessness of being stuck indoors gives way to a giddy abandon, and the unlikely foursome stumble upon little revelations and insights into the kind of youthful longing that stays with one beyond well past adolescence.