BAD HAIR

Junior, a beautiful nine-year-old boy with curls, longs to straighten his hair; his fantasy of looking like a long-haired troubadour has become a fixation. His mother, Marta, exhausted from lack of steady work and single motherhood, worries about the homosexual connotations of his behaviour. Junior is caught between his mother’s anger and his grandmother’s absolute acceptance. Both women go to extremes and Junior’s process of self-discovery, complicated in and of itself, becomes imbued with confusion and guilt. Shot in the vast Caracas multi-family housing units that form a cruel tableau of thousands of families and thousands of stories, Pelo Malo is unflinchingly pragmatist, yet tender towards its protagonists. Spartan in its execution, the film portrays unique, full-blooded characters and achieves a moving and rare humanity.