NYFF. I'm Gonna Explode.

"Voy a Explotar (I'm Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog. "It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn't care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs's The GoodTimeskid), it's the rare love letter to influence that's infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving."

"Godardian teenage angst paean or super-sized Keystone Kops episode?" asks Michael Koresky in Reverse Shot. "Or perhaps Gerardo Naranjo's I'm Gonna Explode is just an unholy mix of both.... It's an adolescent film disguised as a film about adolescence, and there's a big difference between the two."

"Naranjo has a succulent eye for the landscape of the world and the human body, and the film coasts breezily along on curlicuing aesthetic vibes that are rhymed to Roman and Maru's topsy-turvy libidos and emotions, but what are these two privileged teens doing besides recreating scenes from Jean-Luc Godard's canon?" asks Ed Gonzalez in Slant, where he eventually describes the film as "an ode to uncertainly and obliviousness that stylistically keeps moving well after its ideas have reached a dead end."

For Mike D'Angelo, writing at Filmcatcher, "drama/mex was more distinctive, less shaky, but this is still a filmmaker to watch in my opinion."

And for Michael Tully at Hammer to Nail, "Naranja and his young actors bring the hyper-charged emotions of young love and adolescent frustration to colorful life, making I'm Gonna Explode one of the year's most exciting rides."

Online viewing tip. Filmcatcher interviews Naranjo.

Update, 10/8: At Not Coming to a Theater Near You, Cullen Gallagher finds "a little Pierrot le Fou, a dash of Badlands, a hint of Harold and Maude, and garnishes from a slew of other entries in the lovers-on-the-run genre. But there's also something else in there, something unique to Naranjo, and it's what saves the film from drowning under its many references. In fact, I'm Gonna Explode magically floats on top of a wave of teenage angst, ecstasy, and rebellion."

Update, 10/15: Alison Willmore at IFC finds "a swooningly enjoyable series of episodes set to a languid soundtrack of Bright Eyes and Zoot Woman that convey a thorough sense of all-consuming and self-centered pubescent angst. It's a shame that it has to end, and in fact it seems to reach half a dozen conclusions before its final, unsatisfying one."

Update, 10/17: "On its surface, Gerardo Naranjo's I'm Gonna Explode (Voy a Explotar) shares quite a bit with fellow NYFF selection Afterschool in that both are contemporary youth-in-crisis films from directors who are overt in their nods to other filmmakers," writes Andrew Grant. "Yet the similarities end there. For whereas Afterschool is little more than a clinical exercise in Hanekeian style, clichéd ideas, and painfully empty platitudes, I'm Gonna Explode is a lush cinematic ode to romance and (empty) rebellion that flies its Nouvelle Vague flag proudly."

Update, 10/22: "Maru and Roman eventually go on the run for the real, but they end up cuddling in fields, listening not once but twice to Bright Eyes' 'Easy Lucky Free,'" notes Vadim Rizov at the House Next Door. "Yes, it's that kind of movie. Your sympathy for I'm Gonna Explode will therefore depend directly on how much you're willing to deal with bright, funny but fatally solipsistic teens."

Posted by dwhudson at October 6, 2008 2:45 PM