Gigante (2009)

Gigante is a sedately paced, affectionately spun, and understatedly humorous boy-meets-girl story that had foreign-film aficionados at Houston's sixth Latin Wave festival frequently laughing out loud. Jara (with the heart of a boy in the body of a bear) struggles to stay awake through his graveyard-shift job monitoring the security cameras in a Wal-Mart- or Exito-like megastore in Montevideo, Uruguay. Julia (fresh from the country and pretty if plain) is a slightly klutzy night janitor that first provokes his laughter then his empathy. In fact, Jara's sympathies lead him to track her through the cameras at work and then, after work, through the streets to her home -- but he is no more a stalker than Charlie Brown if he showed more curiosity or initiative towards the "red-haired girl." (OK, Jara exercises his weekend-job skills as a bouncer occasionally but that's it.) Jara is simply too shy to speak to Julia so he hopes to learn enough to determine whether she would return his interest. In time, circumstances force (or invite) him to decide whether to act -- but the film leaves us without knowing how their first meeting turns out. Gigante is an understated feel-good film with an economy of dialog: If a scene can be conveyed with a blank look, a grimace, a shrug, a throat clearing, and a look away then that's how this film will present it. The director stated in absentia that Horacio Camandule (Jara) is actually a well-known comic so this role is a real departure for him but I think the audience found him wildly (in the mildest sense) successful. Gigante is an endearing slice-of-life foreign film that follows two interesting characters through their daily routines. It's less antic but funnier than L'Auberge Espagnole and I sincerely hope to see it again. 4 stars.