For all the peril that darkens its fringes, there’s an indomitable youthful exuberance that thrums through Catalina Arroyave Restrepo’s debut feature “Days of the Whale.” It makes the slight, and somewhat familiar, small-scale story, following a few days in the lives of a pair of Medellín-based graffiti artists, feel fresh enough as to be wet to the touch — a neon-colorful, if not hugely deep, manifesto of optimistic defiance spray-stenciled on a newly white-washed wall.
It’s this unmistakable energy and unconcealed filmmaking glee, rather than any particularly strong narrative instinct that marks Arroyave as one to watch. And as a calling card, “Days of the Whale” has already performed well, garnering the writer-director a special recognition in the CherryPicks Female First Feature category at SXSW, following stints at the Cartagena and Tallinn Black Nights film festivals. And in providing such a markedly lively contrast to her countrywoman Laura Mora’s grittier,...
It’s this unmistakable energy and unconcealed filmmaking glee, rather than any particularly strong narrative instinct that marks Arroyave as one to watch. And as a calling card, “Days of the Whale” has already performed well, garnering the writer-director a special recognition in the CherryPicks Female First Feature category at SXSW, following stints at the Cartagena and Tallinn Black Nights film festivals. And in providing such a markedly lively contrast to her countrywoman Laura Mora’s grittier,...
- 3/28/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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