Glue

In the extensive sub-genre of films about growth pains and the sexual awakening of young people, you need a good pedigree to come up with anything new. With minimal means, Alexis Dos Santos succeeds. With the money he was given for project development by the Hubert Bals Fund, Dos Santos set up a workshop, cast the protagonists, found some more money and shot digitally, and partly on Super8, in a windy corner of the desert in Patagonia in the town where he grew up. He found himself there in 1978 at the age of eight because his parents had to flee Buenos Aires for political reasons. One of the underlying themes in Glue is also the feeling that you’re in the wrong place, augmented by the desire to be rebellious and a punk, but far from the possibilities of the big city, and far from kindred spirits. Atmospheric and acoustically shot, and wonderfully acted by the entirely young cast, Glue apparently effortlessly evokes the many ambivalent feelings of puberty. We see the small world through the eyes of 15-year-old Lucas. His parents’ relationship is unstable at best, but he doesn’t want to think about that too much. Together with his best friend Nacho he makes friends with the wayward girl Andrea. They lead a life of hanging around and rocking – for the connoisseurs think of the Violent Femmes before they learnt to play. And, of course, they go through the early stages of sex and drugs, or what passes for these. (SdH)

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