Bad Hair

Nine-year-old Junior's only concern is his hair. He wants to straighten his curls and tries everything to look right in the school photograph. His mother Marta has just lost her job, is raising two children alone, and sees something else in the obsession: she is afraid he might be gay. As the fear grows she tries to change him, and the distance between them widens. Mariana Rondón sets the film in the poor districts of Caracas and shows social pressure not through speeches but through small movements inside a home. Marta is not drawn as a bad mother; she is exhausted, frightened, and passing on to her son the pressure applied to her. Samuel Lange Zambrano plays Junior and Samantha Castillo plays Marta. The film won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2013, the first Venezuelan production to take it; Todd Haynes chaired the jury and the decision was unanimous. Who it's for: Viewers who like Latin American social drama, narratives built from a child's vantage, and films that address homophobia from inside a family. Who it's not for: The film offers no resolution and the ending is hard. The mother and son relationship also goes somewhere uncomfortable to watch.