EL OJO DEL TIBURON

Despite its calm setting and the serene rhythm of its small scenes, El ojo del tiburon, marks the end of childhood: this summer, Maycol and Bryan, two friends from Greytown (Nicaragua), will forego hunting in the jungle with slingshots to learn the dying craft of shark fishing with Maycol’s father, who is one of the few remaining representatives. Alejo Hoijman captures with great finesse the idyllic, peaceful atmosphere of daily life, between sea and jungle. Yet, this apparently calm, even mundane, pace of life (with Nikes and mobile phones as the favourite topics of conversation) is riddled through and through with recurring violence. The strange presence of the military, successors to the father’s Sandinist past and seemingly the laughing stock of the population, adds to a futureless social context that Maycol sums up with scathing humour, claiming that he wants to become a judge, “to launder money and work for drug traffickers, then buy a cartel”. No one knows what the future holds for these boys, caught between consumerism, youthful sabre-rattling and the difficulties of learning their first real job. But the film’s beautiful final scene shows that the camera’s presence along their initiatory journey will have counted for something. (Charlotte Garson)