Irony In 'The Fever And The Fret'

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Bolstered by an impactful score and stern black-and-white images, The Fever and the Fret is a low-budget art-house drama whose viewing can become utterly painful due to its heavy story. However, I found it completely engrossing as we keep crossing the thin line that separates the real from the surreal. Cath Gulick’s debut feature centers on the Bronx dweller Eleanor Mendoza (Adelina Amosco), a depressive 14-year-old student of Asian descent with two large birthmarks on her face, who is a constant victim of bullying at school. Her grandmother (Shirley Cuyugan O'Brien), with whom she lives with, has to remind her every morning about going to school, a very difficult step to the teenager, who prefers to work at the restaurant of her cousin Alex (Rod Rodriquez) for three or four dollars an hour than have to confront her obnoxious colleagues. Is Alex who supports her, and the pressure of still being a virgin impels her to …show more content…

Her grandmother frequently sees her work as a representation of the outer space. Contrasting with the rest of the film, these oneiric sequences are presented in color and always begin with two mountains placed next to each other with the sky filling the remaining spots of the frame. The inclusion of gracious gestural movements oppose to the affliction of laboring alone, whereas the sight of a newborn evolves to the happiness of having a child in her arms. The power of the mind brings pictorial tranquil landscapes where the water is abundant. In her dreams, she also enjoys the company of a look-alike, who exhibits identical strange birthmarks as she does. This fantastic Malick-ish complexity is exciting, mirroring much of Eleanor’s desires but also the lack of her self-esteem. They are the sad consequence of a lamentable emotional desolation that, persisting for years, is driving her dangerously close to

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