Verbo

An Aurum discharge of a Telecinco Cinema, Apaches Entertainment production. (Worldwide sales: Aurum, Madrid.) Created by Enrique Lopez Lavigne, Belen Atienza, Alvaro Agustin. Executive producers, Jesus p la Vega, Jorge Tuca. Directed, compiled by Eduardo Chapero-Jackson.With: Alba Garcia, Miguel Angel Silvestre, Veronica Echegui, Victor Clavijo, Macarena Gomez, Adam Jezierski, Manolo Solo, Fernando Soto, Najwa Nimri. (The spanish language, French dialogue)An ambitious make an effort to visualize an alienated adolescent's imaginings, "Verbo" is really as confused, excitable and sharp-witted since it's heroine. Debut helmer Eduardo Chapero-Jackson follows up his number of well-received shorts by having an intriguing, untidy postmodern fable of teenage angst attracted from the ragbag of influences including sci-fi, rap, "Don Quixote" and "The Matrix," with distinctive results that veer in the legitimately haunting towards the pretentiously overblown. Though its audience appears to become solely vibrant 15-year-olds, this problematic but technically impressive pic merits fest play, and indicates Chapero-Jackson may be someone to watch. Isolated, soft-spoken and nervy gamine Sara (first-timer Alba Garcia) has difficulty interacting together with her worried mother, Ines (Najwa Nimri), her arrogant schoolteacher (Manolo Solo), and many of her schoolmates. Attracted by striking, mysterious graffiti she sees around the walls of her neighborhood within the borders of Madrid, Sara decides to look for the artist, Liriko (Miguel Angel Silvestre, a thesp who in The country is definitely the item of numerous teen dreams). The road between reality and Sara's imagination begins to blur. In a condition of suicidal depression, she descends right into a dark, shiny underworld where she's met through the fiery-eyed Liriko and the team of skateboard-riding, sword-carrying Goth players, for example Medussa (Veronica Echegui) and Prosak (Macarena Gomez). The team's job would be to give alienated teens like Sara the opportunity to find their true selves, within the best fairy-tale tradition, by dealing with three challenges, after which it they can go back to their lives having a restored feeling of purpose. You will find lots of interesting ideas buzzing around here concerning the corporate colonization from the imagination, though these are generally ploddingly spelt out. Dialogue is mainly cliche, whether from Sara's voiceovers ("I walk-through these roads just like a ghost") or Liriko's faux-philosophical advice to her, which seems like a string of ad slogans. Sara's imaginative world is really pretty impoverished. However it does feel true, and there is enough general intelligence at the office to claim that Chapero-Jackson is satirizing the way in which kids' minds are pumped nowadays filled with empty marketing iconography towards the exclusion from the free mental play teens like Sara so frantically need. The The spanish language education system reps another of helmer's targets. Aesthetically, the pic is really as busy like a videogame. At some point, all of the figures become anime-inspired cartoons, as Liriko bursts out right into a song carried out by The spanish language rapper Nach at another, Sara easily blends into a picture within the book she's reading through. The electronically produced underworld is labyrinthine, hard and satisfyingly glossy, however the vibrantly lit, empty spaces of Sara's suburb (partially shot inside a The spanish language ghost town filled with new structures that, publish-crisis, you will find no purchasers) are believe it or not attention-getting. Fragile-featured debutante Garcia, virtually present throughout, is silently compelling, but other thesps are nothing more than convincing ciphers. Editing and seem work are superb.Camera (color), Juan Carlos Gomez editor, Elena Ruiz music, Pascal Gaigne, Nach art director, Gustavo Ramirez seem (Dolby Digital), Agustin Peinado supervisory seem editor, David Rodriguez. Examined at Cine Cite Mendez Alvaro, Madrid, November. 9, 2011. Running time: 87 MIN. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com