Pin Boy 2004

Ana Poliak’s candid portrait of life below the poverty line is a fine example of new Argentinian cinema’s willingness to take risks and forge narratives that push in unexpected directions. Her deceptively effortless film discovers the simple pleasures in the stark working life of Adrián, a young man from the country who is instructed in the physically exhausting art of manual pinsetting at a Buenos Aires bowling alley. Treading a fine line between fiction and documentary, she delights in the offbeat camaraderie of the characters engaged in this arcane profession.

“A rarity among rarities: a thoroughly honest movie about work… Wondrously quiet and contemplative, minimal in form yet rich in observation and everyday poetry, with every image and sound drawn from the immediate environment – the echo within the bowling alley, the wooden pins stacked and restacked on the floor, the faces and voices of the old men, the lifers, who give Adrián an impromptu education.” — Kent Jones, Film Comment.

“ A delicate minimalist gem.”— Jorge Morales, Village Voice