Stop the Pounding Heart

STOP THE POUNDING HEART focuses on Sara, a young woman who lives on a goat farm in rural Texas with her parents and numerous siblings. The daily life of the deeply religious family (which we have already briefly met at a stopover in THE PASSAGE) is marked by work, discipline and prayer.
Minervini takes a lot of time to explore Sara’s role in this rigid system. The individual scenes in which he follows her at work, at the family table or as she is teaching her younger siblings seem like documentary miniatures that last several minutes each. Her everyday life is governed by rules, but the young woman is insecure when it comes to her feelings. The young rodeo rider Colby (who already made a brief appearance in LOW TIDE) is partly to blame for this. “Help her to stop the pounding heart,” Sara’s mother prays at the end of the film, hoping that her daughter may overcome her doubts.
Minervini depicts ritual and religion as close allies: in the prayers of the young rodeo riders before they mount the bulls, or even in ritually staged target practice (“Don’t shoot my chickens!”). With this comparatively gentle completion of his Texas trilogy, Minervini has finally established himself as one of the most important neorealist directors of American cinema. (Michael Pekler)

​Last minute change into OmeU.

In the presence of Roberto Minervini.