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‘The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box)’ Review: A Childhood Survival Story as Strange and Beguiling as Its Title
Ernesto Martínez Bucio's distinctive debut feature 'The Devil Smokes' was the winner of Berlin's inaugural Perspectives competition.
Elliptical in its storytelling, but often piercingly precise in its evocation of particular childhood fears and impulses at a multitude of ages, Martínez Bucio’s film won the top prize in the Berlinale’s newly created Perspectives competition for first features — a testament to its slippery singularity of tone and point of view, as well as to the director’s assured guidance of his predominantly young, inexperienced ensemble. The image teases both the film’s narrative developments and its jagged formal approach, as the director (who shares editing duties with both co-writer Karen Plata and DP Odei Zabaleta) aims to structurally replicate the non-linear disorder and occasional blind spots of ruptured childhood memories. Seemingly plagued by mental health issues, thirtysomething nurse and mother Judith (Micaela Gramajo) has flown the coop, leaving as a parting gift five pairs of new shoes for her children Vanessa (Laura Uribe Rojas), Victor (Donovan Said), Elsa (Mariapau Bravo Avina), Marisol (Regina Alejandra) and Tomas (Rafael Nieto Martinez).
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