El Bola

Saw this in Chihuahua? I think, or on AMC late one night. It's a really good story.

This is not an easy movie to watch. The main focus is child abuse and the help another parent tries to provide and just when you think all is lost, the main character learns to stand up for himself. I will be using this movie with my Spanish class.

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

I had been looking for this movie for a few months and I could not find it in France. Amazon.com gave me the opportunity to purchase it. If you like movies which deal with social relationship and especially relations between a father and a son who cannot understand each other, so I give you a piece of advice : get it on Amazon.com. A friend from France

great movie covering a current topic.

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 cgildren. 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.

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

This is Achero Mañas first film and is really excellent! It won 4 Goyas awards including best picture and best emerging director. Is a very interesting stoy about fathers and sons and that no always what you see is what is true. Really an excellent buy!