Stop the Pounding Heart

This slice-of-life film is 96 painful minutes of pointlessness focused on sad and tragic people trapped in poverty and squalor. The filmmaker spent 2 months filming these life slices, which he then re-assembled to create what appears to be the observation of a teenage identity crisis. Set in east Texas, the film is a modified documentary-style with very limited dialogue, moving the limited story-line forward through pensive looks, forest walks, feeding and milking goats, and bull riding. The main family is shown repeatedly reading or justifying their lifestyle through their bible interpretations. These scenes are interspersed gun shooting, and with young men covered with tattoos who ride mechanical, and then real, bulls. Through all of these scenes, you suppose that, perhaps, there's a love interest developing. You have a lot of time to think/anticipate what the movie is about since there's so little of consequence happening on screen. Skip this movie and do something more stimulating, like watching moss grow.

Roberto Minervini is an Italian director who elected to share this sensitive coming of age story about 14 year old girl in a family of goat farmers in Texas. Without the benefits of a cast of actors he manages to create not a documentary but instead a quiet observation of what life is like in the rural parts of a too fast world – a place where values are different if not always better.

Sara is a young girl raised in a family of goat farmers. Her parents home-school their twelve children, rigorously following the precepts of the Bible. Like her sisters, Sara is taught to be a devout woman, subservient to men while keeping her emotional and physical purity intact until marriage. When Sara meets Colby, a young amateur bull rider, she is thrown into crisis, questioning the only way of life she has ever known. STOP THE POUNDING HEART is an exploration of adolescence, family and social values, gender roles, and religion in the rural American South. With minimal dialogue, amateur non-actors, and majestically beautiful cinematography this is a film that is a pastoral. It deserves our attention.

Sara is fourteen and has been homeschooled with her eleven siblings. She has been raised in accordance with the teachings of the Bible and has been brought up to believe in subservience to male authority. She is a loving young woman who has an affinity with the goats that they farm for a living and takes care of the younger children.

Then she meets Colby who is an amateur bull rider and all of a sudden she begins to questions her long held beliefs and attitudes.

This is a film from Roberto Minervini who has been described as an ethnographer in is films. It is easy to see why, as he uses the camera to observe rather than to dictate what happens on screen. It has the feeling of documentary rather than film. It feels as though everyone are just being themselves and there is no actual 'acting' taking place. The scenes have a casual beauty in how even the mundane is captured and there is no attempt to make judgements on any of the things that take place.

This is a film for those who like to savour their cinema; that do not need to be rushed or told what the message is. It is gentle and even poetic in many ways and fans of 'action' movies should probably avoid. I found it to be almost mesmerising in many ways, you just go along for the ride and never expect what will take place next. This was part of the official selection at Cannes and you can see why. This I can wholeheartedly recommend to people who like something different yet rewarding from films.

"Stop the Pounding Heart" is a dramatic title for such a quiet, gentle, observant film. The filmmakers offer no real plot to speak of, but instead simply follow the daily life of Sara, a 14-year old girl raised on farm in Texas by a devotedly Christian family. With absolute naturalism, the film observes the details of her life: Sara going about her chores, attending family prayer time and Bible studies, helping to home school the many siblings, watching an actual home birth, practicing shooting with her father. We hear her parent's words as they teach the Bible and talk with deep sincerity of marriage, a woman's "Biblical" role as subservient to the husband, and abstinence before marriage. We see the family visiting the local rodeo and the young bull rider that catches Sara's eye. We slowly, very slowly, observe discontent rising up in Sara's heart.

Having been personally raised in a Christian family, and near communities of home schoolers, I have never witnessed such an authentic portrayal of these types of beliefs and this very specific type of American faith. The insider language and internal logic of this community feel absolutely genuine at every moment. The acting is so natural that I'm convinced the players were cast from within that type of community. The people on the farm are absolutely kind, but also insular and self-reinforcing. The film does not judge, but simply observes and ponders. We can understand the pull of such a loving place with so many answers and so many people who all believe the same way. We can also understand the suffocation.

While I found the details of the film fascinating to watch, the film offers little else but those details. It watches, and we watch, and hopefully we ponder with it, but those seeking narrative momentum will be left unsatisfied. Those seeking reflection and observation will come away full.