January 26, 2007

Sundance. El Bufalo de la Noche (The Night Buffalo).

The Night Buffalo "Dogged by the suicide and memory of a schizophrenic friend, a young man makes all the wrong choices in The Night Buffalo, the latest work from the prolific world of Mexican novelist-screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga," writes Robert Koehler in Variety. "Unfortunately, the author's tendency toward manipulative melodrama - standard in his collaborations with Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros, Babel) - trump his more interesting storytelling instincts, resulting in a profoundly unsatisfying drama."

Updated through 1/27.

For Bryan Whitefield, writing at ScreenGrab, this was "one of the films I was most excited about seeing," but it's left him "severely disappointed.... It's the weaknesses in the story and script that are this film’s real downfall."

The film, notes Michael Lerman at indieWIRE, "for its faults - most of which have to do with some ludicrous plot points - does manage to keep an eerie atmosphere with its skin-crawling music and jolting cinematography."

Update, 1/27: A "pretentious mess that seems interminable even at 97 minutes," warns Sura Woods in the Hollywood Reporter.

Coverage of the coverage: The Park City Index.

Posted by dwhudson at January 26, 2007 12:37 PM

Comments

I love Arriaga's work so much and am sorry to hear the first batch of reviews on THE NIGHT BUFFALO are so qualified. I hope this arrives at our San Francisco International so I can have a chance to decide for myself. Guillermo just emailed me, explaining: "NIGHT BUFFALO is what we call here in Mexico "un ave de tempestades". This is a term used for matadores who create huge controversy and that are hated or loved, nothing in between; it literally means "Bird of storms". You'll see it and decide. Until now, young people like it much more than people 35 or older."

At an inverse 53, I sure hope to prove Guillermo wrong.

Posted by: Michael Guillen at January 26, 2007 1:19 PM

Having actually read Arriaga's novel THE NIGHT BUFALLO, I'm sad to say I'd be very surprised if the movie was any good. The novel sports all of his worst tendencies, whereas I'd argue that a script like THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA finds him at his best. I have high hopes for his continuing career, but hopefully it will benefit from a cold survey of the pretentious excesses of THE NIGHT BUFALLO, not to mention the more unweidly elements of 21 GRAMS and BABEL.

Posted by: Josef at January 28, 2007 8:48 PM