Two Shots Fired
Contemporary World Cinema
After a day of clubbing, swimming and garden work, Mariano (Rafael Federman) found a gun in his shed and shot himself twice. If this was a suicide, or an act of boredom, is unclear, as after surviving the incident he doesn’t seem anymore despairing than his generally blasé community. His mother is a little frantic, his brother fairly straight forward, they all seem in different ways uncannily unceremonious, distant from the world, though it’s not as if the world is doing much to draw them back in.
After establishing the family ties, writer and director Martin Rejtman expands a growing net to catch more characters, letting us be flies-on-the-wall their ongoing lives. Mariano scouts a new member for his woodwind quartet through some kind of dating service, and she becomes a numb limb to their lives. Mariano’s brother starts seeing a fast food server who has been breaking up with her current partner over the course of multiple years. Mariano’s mother decides to take a vacation to the beach, taking Mariano’s tutor and an overbearing near-stranger along for the ride.
It’s an odd transpiring of incredibly dry events, just when you think you have the film figured out it will jolt you awake with a Marx Brothers style joke about couch therapy or an unexpected bird. It’s a strange thing, a slice-of-life observational comedy that feels like it’s on self-prescribed medicine. Hard to love, and no desire to hate, Two Shots Fired will go well with audiences looking for something more odd than it is enlightening. (Zack Kotzer)
Screens
Friday, September 5th, 9:15pm, Scotiabank 4
Monday, September 8th, 2:00pmpm, Jackman Hall AGO
Friday, September 12th, 3:15pm, Scotiabank 4
Thanks to SPiN TORONTO for sponsoring our TIFF 2014 coverage.
