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Meet Pablo (Juan José Ballesta), better known to his friends as El Bola ("Pellet"), because of the steel ball he carries around with him as a good luck charm.
Twelve-years-old and small for his age, he's a hardened street kid who spends more time playing chicken on the local railway tracks than at home with his family. After new boy Alfredo (Pablo Galán) befriends him at school, though, Pellet discovers that there's more to life than the beatings his father regularly inflicts on him.
Grittily convincing, this first feature from director Achero Mañas won a string of prizes at the Goya Awards (the Spanish Oscars) and has been pulling in a great deal of acclaim at film festivals across Europe. It's not hard to see why, since this is a strikingly powerful movie, that blends the moving realism of Ken Loach's "Sweet Sixteen" with some deceptively simple storytelling.
Dealing with issues of domestic violence, "El Bola" teases a truly remarkable performance from its lead actor, twelve-year-old Juan José Ballesta, who plays this street urchin in equal parts tough and vulnerable. A fractured victim of more past traumas than Mañas actually lets us see, he's old beyond his years.
By capturing the fledgling machismo of these kids (pinching cigarettes, flicking through porn magazines, playing suicidal games on the train tracks), Mañas brings us right into the heart of this story's focus on masculinity and violence, mapping out the tragedy of El Bola's family situation with a precision that promises an inevitable ending.
Yet what's so assured about this debut feature is the way in which its writer-director is able to avoid the expected stereotypes of character and action. He instead offers an ending that's as understated as it is unexpected.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
