Roberto Minervini's Stop The Pounding Heart is a quiet, contemplative study of personal conviction, adolescence, faith, and family, which blends aspects of minimalism and neorealism to create a naturalistic study of a young woman raised in a fundamentalist christian home. The story is centered around Sarah, a teenage girl being raised in South Texas by a family of goat farmers. One of twelve children, Sarah and her brothers and sisters were homeschooled, raised to follow the mandate of the Bible down to ever letter. In this household, woman are raised to be subservient to men, remaining of pure mind and body until they can marry and bestow a child to their husband. When Sara meets Colby, a fellow teenager and amateur bull rider, she begins to question the very fundamentals she was raised on. Stop the Pounding Heart is a film that is bound to frustrate some viewers due to its tepid, minimalist qualities, but what Robert Minervini has created is a film of that delivers an observant study of adolescence, capturing the quite contemplation of a young woman who is attempting to understand her own ideas and feelings in the world around her. Using mostly non-actors, Roberto Minervini's film feels very much like a documentary at times, making sure to capture the setting of this rural southern environment, showing the culture and environment which Sarah grew up in and allowing it to soak in with the viewer. While the chemistry between the two non-actors, Sarah and Colby, is practically non-existent, no question being a bi-product of the film's authenticity, it makes little difference in the long run, as the understated power of the film's true story arch centered around the awakening of a young woman from her fundamentalist upbringing is the real meat of this story. There have been a lot of films about similar subject matter, but I've seen very few that are capable of showing such respect and restraint as Roberto Minervini, who beautifully captures the dangers of such fundamentalist beliefs and the damage it can cause in adolescence, while never judging them and making sure to remind the viewer that Sarah's parents views, though perceived as misguided by the majority, only come from a place of love and compassion. Many filmmakers couldn't resist the urge to have these characters come off as stereotypical nutjobs, but in showing restraint, i'd argue Roberto Minervini's film is one of the most powerful of the bunch. One of my favorite sequences of the film comes near the end, where Sarah expresses her confusion and doubt about her subservient role their faith dictates. Through a simple, naturalistic sequence, the film beautifully exposes how Sarah can't even truly confide in her own parents for answers, showing how with faith and religion her mother can simply rattle off a bible verse, giving a simplistic explanation to justify pretty much anything, exposing the lack of intellectual though religion can bread and how this can leave a child even more confused about their emotions. Incredibly restrained and quietly contemplative, Roberto Minervini's Stop the Pounding Heart is a fascinating study of faith, family, and personal belief, capturing the relationships between these three concepts and how complicated it can be during adolescence to find oneself.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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