‘Campeón Gabacho’ & ‘Their Town’ Reviews: SXSW Launches Powerful Films That Keep It All In The Family

Now that SXSW has concluded, one of the significant film trends has turned out to be movies with a strong familial connection behind the scenes. I previously reviewed Family Movie, which was directed and produced by spouses Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick and featured the four main starring roles for themselves and their two grown kids, Sosie Bacon and Travis Bacon. Following are two more reviews that show that talent certainly can be an inherited thing.

Campeón Gabacho comes from Jonás Cuarón (Desierto), the filmmaking son of multi-Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón, who serves as a producer on his son’s latest movie that won the audience award at SXSW. Their Town comes from director Katie Aselton and writer Mark Duplass, who also serve as executive producers (along with Jay Duplass) for the starring film debut of their daughter Ora Duplass.

‘Campeón Gabacho‘

A timely film for Jonás Cuarón centers on Mexican immigrant Liborio (Juan Daniel García Treviño), a young man who has been bullied and punched through life and now crosses the Rio Grande in search of something better in the United States — a dream of so many immigrants that of late has turned into a nightmare for them under the current administration determined to deport as many as possible.

Although pulling no punches itself, the film directed by Cuarón — who also co-wrote it with source-book author Aura Xilonen — is a beautifully stylized effort where the dreams of Liborio collide with the realities of life in the Latino barrio of New York City. We see LIborio is a young man who can’t get much of a break. For example, his steady job working in a bookstore blows up when it is set on fire and destroyed by those bullies ruling the neighborhood. His self-confidence is shattered until he finds worth and purpose with an inherent talent for fighting back in the boxing ring under the tutelage of Abacuc (Rubén Blades), who sees his potential for something much greater than being a poor immigrant kid on the skids in the big city.

What Cuarón has done is to create a highly stylized view of this part of NYC and created it with magnificent production design (from Fernanda Guerrero) and cinematography (from Pepe Alvina del Pino) on a soundstage in Mexico. In its own way, it looks like those old MGM musicals that all were produced in studio confines, and within it we see two versions of Liborio: one that shows the vivid realities of his life, the other the hopeful and almost dreamlike way he sees things from the inside. Thus Cuarón is free to break the bleakness in his life with the surreal life where a kiss becomes the ticket for romantic flight into the skies.

At times this all reminded me a bit of Elia Kazan’s magnificent memoir of a young Greek coming to a new life in America America and at other times of Spike Lee’s vividly filmed Do the Right Thing in a different NYC neighborhood. Throw in just a bit of the Rocky fantasy, and it is a film ultimately unique, moving and given real importance at this dark time for immigrants just like Liborio.

Title: Campeón Gabacho
Festival: SXSW (Narrative Spotlight)
Director: Jonás Cuarón
Screenwriters: Jonás Cuarón and Aura Xilonen
Cast: Juan Daniel García Treviño, Leslie Grace, Rubén Blades, Eddie Marsan, Rosario Dawson, Cheech Marin, Marin Jones III, Carlos Carrasco, Dolores Heredia
Running time: 1 hr 48 mins
Sales agent: WME

‘Their Town‘

Mark Duplass is a veteran of the independent film movement, along with his wife Katie Aselton. With Duplass writing and Aselton directing Their Town, they have found the perfect vehicle for the feature-starring debut of their daughter Ora Duplass in an 80-minute movie that for the most part is a two-hander. Ora plays Abby, who is appearing her high school’s production of Our Town with, among others, her boyfriend, who abruptly drops out. This creates a mini-crisis until he gets replaced by Matt (Chosen Jacobs), a bit of a standoffish kid who now must step up. To help him do that and get comfortable as co-stars, Abby and Matt spend a memorable night on the town (it was all shot in Bangor, Maine) basically just walking around and simply talking to each other, discovering their connections all through their school years, their hopes, dreams, fears and much more.

This is a movie about conversation, much like Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise trilogy of films with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Instead of two mature adults, though, the emphasis here is on teenagers, and all the angst of growing up and finding yourself. Mark Duplass’ sensitive script clearly comes from a man who has daughters of his own. One of those daughters, Ora, has to carry this, and it is an exquisite performance, one that understands just who Abby is in layers of innocence, curiosity, frustration and wisdom beyond her years. Jacobs is a real find as Matt, exhibiting a touch of honesty and authenticity that matches his co-star’s in every way. In other words, this is a teen film that feels real. That said, it gets a little unnecessarily melodramatic toward the end, when Matt gets into a confrontation with the boyfriend, a jarring development that felt a bit forced. The flow of the words, not fists, is what makes this small but lovely little indie work so well.

Title: Their Town
Festival: SXSW (Narrative Spotlight)
Director: Katie Aselton
Screenwriter: Mark Duplass
Cast: Ora Duplass, Chosen Jacobs, Jeffrey Self, William Parker, Annie Henk, Daveed Diggs, Kim Shaw, Leonard Nam
Running time: 1 hr 30 mins
Sales agent: Submarine, CAA

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