Zeus review: We’re kicking off our coverage of the 2017 Transilvania Film Festival with this interesting drama from Mexico and artist/ filmmaker Miguel Calderon.
Zeus review by Paul Heath at the 2017 Transilvania Film Festival, Romania.
Zeus review
Zeus opens to a sweeping rural vista somewhere in Mexico, one man visible in frame, the thirty-something Joel (Daniel Saldana), a loner of a man who still lives at home with his mother Luisa (Ana Teran). He spends his days in the countryside with his beloved hawk, the ‘Zeus’ of the title, and his evenings preparing Power Point presentations for his doctor mother after she recovers from an illness. His father is no longer present, as Joel’s prepares said computer documents for his mother, she goes for a ‘walk’, and daily event which is venturing across to the next-door neighbour’s house for a touch of the old horizontal Olympics with a man named Ernesto (Mauricio Calderon).
Luisa keeps her romantic trysts secret from her son, the young boy pre-occupying his days in the fields with Zeus. It is there where he meets a young lady named Ilse (Diana Sedano), an attractive woman who has caught the eye of Joel’s sometime hunting partner Victor (Paris Roa). Victor invites Ilse to a hunt one overcast day, much to the bemusement of the focussed Joel, who clearly and unapologetically prefers to be alone with his hobby. However, the two find some kind of connection with her presence instantly rocking Joel’s tiny world, notably the strange relationship that he has with his mother, and with his pet hawk, who suddenly seems to have disappeared.
Zeus review
What’s interesting about Zeus is that it is a very low budget movie, costing less than $1 million, but looking like so much more on the big screen. The cinematography is grand, and the locations extensive, both matched to an intricately told narrative involving two very inexperienced actors who delight in the leads. Both Saldana and Teran – both writers rather than thespians – delight as a slightly off-beat mother and son, supremely watchable in each and every softly-staged scene.
There’s also an appearance from the director’s father Mauricio as the horny love interest next door – a terrifically underplayed role, also a stand-out. Sedano, as the object of the younger affections Ilse, clearly with the right intentions but a definite spanner-in-the-works, is also pleasing.
Zeus is a film that won’t appeal to everyone. With his photography and sculpture background, Calderon’s film is enormously art house, a slow-building affair that takes it time to take flight, and while the sudden ending may surprise some, its message does indeed land crystal clear as the credits slowly roll a tight 85-ish minute from the film’s beginning.
Zeus review by Paul Heath, June 2017.
Zeus played and was reviewed at the 2017 Transilvania International Film Festival.
