SUGAR
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
2009 Appeared in the journal Sequences
Glory in the detour
In the enclosure of sport movies , Sugar stands handily, pushing the cloakroom platitudes and endless odes to the esprit de corps or neglected. The second feature film of the duo behind Half Nelson overestimated dare get out of what promised to be another simple uptake feat to earn a place in the sun of the professional leagues, a bold step for a genre to be telegraphed.
Land of all controversies, baseball has lost the nobility of his status as American national sport - but also Latino or Asian, should we still remember it - accumulating in recent cases of forfeiture, cheating and 'swelling wage. But if we are to believe his credo "It's not over until it's not over," the discipline rooted in the customs for over 150 years still has many stories before it, so that wondered how that Sugar has been able to remain unexplored in cinema long ago that American players Latin certainly constitute more than half of the troops working under the lights of American major league baseball stadiums for a long time.
Anna Boden and Ryan
Fleck, who had watched from the documentary Young Rebels (2005) the abundance of talent Hispanic - those of Cuban rappers in this case - were interested in the nursery Dominican, which had fueled the alignment Montreal Expos for several seasons, creating the character of Miguel 'Sugar' Santos out of the experiences of several teenagers with the hopes of leaving forever the shallows of San Pedro de Macoris, winning recruiters Major League Baseball (MLB) and thus belong to the American dream.
Santos, a young pitcher on the arm of steel, do not speak English and knows nothing of living in the United States, like most other Dominican prospects. Although we do understand quickly that his impeccable moral could lead to lucrative professional contracts from Uncle Sam, it is difficult to judge its ambitions intimate, introverted as this seems to stifle his passion under a rigid discipline training .
suite fails to clarify the little things being spotted by scouts the MLB then invited to join the camps of recruits in Arizona and Iowa, Santos does not fits in her foster family and in his new environment, yet ideal to hatch his talent. The last third of Sugar , it is difficult to prove without undermining the impact of the film, takes an unexpected tangent, in which Santos jeopardizes his career and let chance dictate his fate rather than statistics and championships. The authenticity of
Sugar is definitely his best asset, you can count on the expertise of the former Expos' Jose Rijo in front and behind the camera is in itself indicative of the seriousness of this company, away from fireworks most other films of the ball. Fleck and Boden also show some dramatic insight to forge links between the modest living conditions of the Dominicans and the humility of populating the rural Midwest, whose enthusiasm for baseball is matched only by their faith in Christian ideals .
The film does not shy clichés and abused by the candid moments of the main character to emphasize the cultural gap between Santos and his adopted home, as evidenced by the scenes of bickering interracial bigotry juvenile and the temptation of anabolic steroids, presumably in an effort to frame as wide as possible on the temptations and setbacks of adulation could contaminate the brightest hopes in the evolving physical and moral guidelines as strict as those of military schools.
Sugar is one of those cases where the solid play of actors and filmmakers will get out of the mysteries of a sort are sealed by the schematic characterization - even fatalistic - the characters and their environment. But taking advantage of the efficiency of the sociological literature and the popularity of a practice inseparable cement Community U.S., Boden and Fleck have been able to avoid the pitfalls of either pan-Hollywood independent film, which is to let the story dictate cultural hierarchies without ever challenging, original or not.
© 2009 Charles-Stéphane Roy
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