Cinematical

There's a small subgenre of independent cinema that appeals only to the most patient (or masochistic) of filmgoers. This unnamed grouping is usually made up of low-budget foreign films that are character studies at heart, rarely showing much concern for plot, character growth, or any sort of action. For some of us, these films are gold mines of personality and depth; for others they're nightmares of ponderous self-indulgence. Whatever you think of these spare, independent features, The Dog Pound is one of them. Achingly slow and distracted for its first half, the film eventually gains strength and focus, and ends as a piece of affecting, thoughtful filmmaking from Manolo Nieto, a Uruguayan writer-director working alone for the first time.

Though it has a periodic tendency to wander almost at random, the movie centers on Daniel (Pablo Alexandre, a film student appearing on screen for the first time), a lazy, pot-smoking 25-year-old lay-about who lives, rent free, in the holiday cottage of his father (Martín Adjemián), and at first seems content to do so for the foreseeable future. His perfect life of sex, sleep and weed is thrown asunder when his father arrives unexpectedly and, disgusted by the state of David's life, cuts him off. Though his father feels that school -- even on scholarship, which he sees as freeloading on the state -- is essentially a waste of time, he agrees to let Daniel reapply (he's already spent some time at university in Montevideo) if he can finish building a house on the land his father gave him some months ago. Though Daniel brags a lot about his plans for the house, there's not even a foundation laid, and his father has nearly given up.

Anchored by the year-long build of the tiny, ramshackle house, The Dog Pound is a deceptively easy-going look at life in small town Uruguay (specifically in Rocha, where the film was shot and where some of the cast lives), seen through the lens of Daniel and his ne'er-do-well friends. None of them seem to have jobs, a fact by which they are profoundly untroubled. Content to live hand-to-mouth, the small "tribe" (as they call themselves) of friends spends most of its time -- both together and alone -- drinking cheap wine, getting stoned, talking about sex and masturbating. Occasionally, they find the motivation to help Daniel work on his house, but that's generally when they get hungry, or want some of their friend's weed. Despite his apparent lack of motivation, Daniel is really the only member of this group with any interest in the future; his friends mock him constantly for preferring sleep over work, but in a growing part of Daniel's brain he wants a life beyond Rocha, and his dreams of returning to school become increasingly important as the weeks go by.

Difficult to sit through during its wandering, scattered first half, Nieto's film snaps into focus with about 45 minutes to go. (In a post-show Q&A, producer-editor Fernando Epstein admitted that the film, which was shot and edited in segments, was given its focus in the editing room rather than in the screenplay, and it shows. (The movie is much tighter in its second half, as if Nieto took a while to realize what his film was actually about.) Suddenly, we're in the hands of a surprisingly mature filmmaker who effortlessly exposes Daniel's very core: For the first time, we see his world as he does in his rare moments of sobriety. Like many people in Daniel's stage of life, the fun and brotherhood he shares with his tribe are only a flimsy façade laid over the real disappointment with which they all live, and an effort to stave off the struggles ahead.

In the impressive second half of his film, Nieto explores these truths with a surprisingly deft touch: He steadfastly keeps his emotional distance, refusing to judge or draw conclusions. Daniel's creeping loneliness is heartbreaking and absolutely real, and Nieto's straightforward storytelling gives the last section of his film a very European feel. The easy vulnerability of the second half of The Dog Pound more than rescues it -- it also definitively marks the film's young director as one to watch for the future.