El Bola ( 2000 ) ( Pellet ) [ Blu-Ray, Reg.A/B/C Import - Spain ]

Heart warming movie. A friend of mine recommended it, I loved .

Well acted and well directed. The relationships of the boys was very moving. The juxtaposition of the family relationships of the two families was interesting.

El Bola is a powerful movie from Spain. In 2000, it was director Achero Manas first full-length feature after having directed a handful of short film projects. It handles the powder keg issue of child abuse with realism. Juan Jose Ballesta plays Pablo, nicknamed Pellet. At filming, I believe he was 12. Juan had played on Spanish TV, but this was his first feature. He has worked consistently in Spanish films in the seven years since. He breaks your heart with those eyes that reflect the joy, innocence and love of a child and contrasts with the utter fear for his life. The culminating incident where he spits in his fathers face blows the lid off. We know whats coming and watch as the helpless mother flails about pathetically. Pablos best friend is Alfredo, played by Pablo Galan. Galan was chosen from 1,600 children who auditioned. He had no previous acting experience. Hes a bit heavyset; & his Alfredo is an oddball & loner. Galan was well chosen. He moves effortlessly between the young adolescent alienation, to wild abandon as he crashes the amusement park rides, to sober contemplation as he sees the family friend dying of AIDS. Beside Ballestas Pablo, Alberto Jimenez makes the greatest impression as Jose, the father of best friend Pablo. Jose is a tattoo artist. We first view him as wild, tattooing a dragon on fat mans back. As his screen time increases, we see a father who listens to his family, treats his wife & children well and cares about them and his friends. Jose stands up for Pablo, taking risks on the boys behalf. By the films end, he is our hero. With six films shot in 2007, Jimenez has had a busy career in Spanish cinema since this film from 2000. Our villain is Pablos father Mariano, played by Manuel Moron. The Film Movement DVD explains that the character is sad because of the loss of his first son. However, no explanation suffices for the loveless home life this father creates. I found it interesting that the Film Movement DVD lists stage training and productions for Moron in Spain & Argentina. Moron plays this controlling parent perfectly; and we hate him for it. Of the smaller roles, all characters are well directed and fill the film realistically. Ana Wagener, who to me looks a bit like Melissa Etheridges Spanish sister, plays the social worker Laura who advises Alfredos family on how to handle the situation. Maximo Jimenez plays Pablos friend Cobeta, a good looking lad who plays a game of rushing onto the railroad tracks before an oncoming train to grab a bottle. Gloria Munoz plays Aurora, Pablos helpless mother who cannot stop her husbands abuse. The screenplay leaves an open-ended conclusion. The events have been so disturbing that perhaps we all hope for the best. We could either interpret that things will get better for Pablo or that the father will get away with his domestic abuse. Perhaps in this situation, no one can actually win. This is a powerful film that should be viewed by mature audiences. May our angels around the world help children from every culture who find themselves helpless and attacked.

This movie was a dissapointing waste of time. It showed that violence happens within family units and that not all people are bad. Thats it. Dull, uninteresting, negative, with no moral or even ending to the story. Junk.

Pablo (Juan Jose Ballesta), known by his friends as Pellet, is ruled by a tyrannical and abusive father. Pellet pales as he tries to grow up under the shadow of a dead brother, but remains a deeply empathetic and sensitive child. When classmates pick on the new kid, Alfredo (Pablo Galan), Pellet befriends him and is consequently introduced to a gentle and fun version of family life centered around Alfredos sweet father Jose. You dont learn the extent of Pellets abuse until the last few seconds of the film and youre left wondering how anyone who endured such depravity could have been so sweet. This film won more than 30 international awards, including four Spanish Goyas, all of them well-deserved. At times I completely forgot I was watching a movie and that the actors were acting. Engrossing and tender. If you like this film, Id also recommend the films

El Bola or `the pellet is the nickname given to young Pablo - he carries a ball bearing for good luck. He has a miserable home life where he is forced to help care for his incontinent and ageing grandmother, work in his fathers shop, his father is a vicious tyrant who beats him for any reason and is a control freak par excellence and his mother is indifferent. Across this ensemble is cast the shadow of his elder dead brother - whose place El Bola should be in - according to his father. Then one day a new boy enters the class - despite the initial rejection by the other boys, Bola sees something in him and starts a friendship. He then discovers a family who have many problems and despite the parents being separated they come across as balanced and loving both to each other and their children. This is something Bola has not experienced before and the friendship blossoms. Then his father finds out and bans him from any further contact - the beatings increase in ferocity too and everything starts building for a denouement - but who will be the ultimate victim? This is an extremely well made film with an outstanding performance from Juan Jose Ballesta (`Bruc) as El Bola and a supporting cast that all put in fine performances. Director Achero Mañas has taken the difficult subject of parental abuse and tackled it in a believable and still upsetting way. For anyone who suffered at the hands of a parent this will be an uncomfortable watch. The embarrassment factor is one that I can still remember having had a father with similar inclinations, and this is all captured along with the hugely violent mood swings and the seemingly innocuous things that can trigger the violence from the father. It is hard to say I enjoyed this film for reasons as stated, but it has made a lasting impression and is well worth hunting down - it came out in 2000. It is in Spanish with good subtitles and a run time of an hour and a half - not an easy watch but ultimately a rewarding one.

The performances of the two central boys, and the cast around them ring absolutely true to my understanding of what happens in the situation El Bola finds himself in, and I predict that both young actors will go far. Many will ask why the mother didnt intervene, and will say that no mother in real life would stand by; sadly this film is true to life. The mother would have been ground down for years, to the point of being impotent to do anything. For the first half, this film has a nihilistic feel of futility to it. It is heart-breaking, but also life-affirming. The film is unrated in America, but the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) Rating, legally required for movies released in Britain, is 15. That means it is rated unsuitable for anyone below the age of 15.

This multi-award-winning film tackles the difficult subject of domestic abuse and in particular a fathers abusive relationship with his twelve-year-old son. The nature of this abuse is revealed slowly, so that like any outsider, we dont see the full extent of it until weve already formed opinions about both characters. The film contrasts their relationship with that of the boys new friend at school, whose father is a tattoo artist and seems on the surface to be more potentially troublesome as a parent. But as we watch him with his son, we see how is firmness is an expression of his caring and love for the boy. The boys two homes represent mirror worlds with contrasting emotional dynamics. The drama in the film emerges as the abusive fathers treatment of his son becomes gradually apparent to his sons friend, and we become informed of the near inability of anyone outside the family to rescue him. There is no easy resolution to this dilemma, and we are left with a sense of urgency about this disturbing social problem. The performances of the two twelve-year-olds are wonderful, as they become friends, exploring the early stages of their growing independence. Shot in the streets of Madrid, the film has a gritty, gray urban ambiance, and key scenes are played out along a railway where commuter trains rush by and schoolboys play death-defying games across the tracks.

great movie covering a current topic.