Lazy Days (Dejate Caer) October 16, 2008

Grabi, Nandi and Roberto Carlos have been best mates since school only they left (school) years ago and still they aren’t willing to hold down a job. Their days are spent sitting on a bench in the Seville suburb where they live drinking beer and commenting on the activities of the neighbourhood. Home leaves a lot to be desired. Roberto Carlos flirts with the bakery assistant while his highly-strung mother despairs of his aimlessness. Nandi seems over preoccupied with his neighbour’s sexual comings and goings while Grabi finds himself caught between his sister’s amorous adventures and his parents’ bickering. But then Roberto Carlos meets Sunci and the dynamic between the men shifts in ways that all three struggle to come to terms with. Spain has produced a number of distinctive low-budget slacker movies in recent years and Lazy Days is a warm and often very funny addition to the crop. Writer-director Jesús Ponce’s witty Andalusian dialogue defies easy translation but together with the wacky posse of characters offers a rhythm and pacing to the action that lifts the film beyond the realms of realism to a comic absurdism that casts a discerning eye over masculine myths and mores.

Official Website: http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/lazy_days_0