The best film I’ve seen so far this year is “Duck Season” (Tempora de patos) by Fernando Eimbcke. At 36, Mr. Eimbcke is an almost exact contemporary of Carlos Reygadas, whose “Battle in Heaven” so annoyed me a few weeks ago, but he has none of his compatriot’s artsy pretentiousness or self-conscious “daring.”

Instead, he is content to tell a very simple story on a very small scale – in black-and-white – and so achieves a level of artistic accomplishment that eludes the other Mexican director.

Juan Pablo, known as Moko (Diego Catano) and Mario, known as Flama (Daniel Miranda) are 14-year-old best friends spending a long Sunday alone together in Flama’s parents’ apartment. The apartment building is called Ninos Heros – heroic children.

Flama’s mother (Carolina Politi) is just on her way out the door as the story gets under way, and she fusses about whether she has left the stove – or the coffeemaker – on, returning to the apartment twice before finally disappearing.

When she does, the camera remains focused on the apartment door for some time until we see it open a crack and the boys peek out to find her gone. The door closes again, the door shot is re-established, and from inside the apartment we hear a muted cheer.

Their project for the day appears to be nothing more than playing a violent video game that pits President Bush against Osama bin Laden. The boys quarrel over who gets to be bin Laden. But before they have been playing very long, the power goes out and they are left to amuse themselves as best they can until it comes on again.

Even at this early stage, as our Ninos Heros pit themselves against one another in the game and then fight together against boredom, we begin to get a sense of Mr. Eimbcke’s compassion toward the boys. There is comedy in their assertive idleness and playful obscenity, but there is also a sense, as we gradually become aware, in which the idea of heroism in connection with them is not entirely ironic.

A neighbor girl, Rita (Danny Perea), knocks on the door and asks if she can use the oven to bake a cake, as hers isn’t working. At 16, she’s more worldly wise than they are, but obviously doesn’t know much about baking a cake. The boys leave her to it and order their pizza.

“Why do you time them?” Moko says to Flama as he sees him setting the timer on his digital watch. “They always make it.” But this time, because the power is out and the 20-something delivery guy, Ulises (Enrique Arreola), has to climb eight flights rather than take the elevator, he doesn’t make it. “You’re 11 seconds late,” Flama tells him.

Not surprisingly, Ulises disagrees and says he’s not leaving until he gets paid. Soon the power comes back on, and Ulises agrees to play a video soccer game with Flama for the money and the pizza. Just as it appears that Flama is about to score the winning goal, the power goes out again.

The argument between Ulises and Flama about who should pay for the pizza continues and Moko wanders out to the kitchen to help Rita with her cake. It emerges that Flama’s parents are splitting up and that he will move away with his mother. This is his and Moko’s last day together. Rita also seems to live with a single mother and perhaps a boyfriend. She’s trying to bake the cake because it is her birthday and “they forgot at home.”

Ulises wants to be a vet or a zookeeper, as he is fascinated by animals, but he has had to leave school, move away from home to live with a great aunt in the city, and deliver pizzas. It’s not much, but it beats his previous job of killing stray dogs and shoveling their carcasses into the incinerator at the city pound. He thinks opportunity in life is now closed to him, but dreams of making enough by breeding exotic birds to go back home again.

All four of the characters later discuss the equitable division of the kitsch art and figurines that Flama’s parents have collected and about which they are now bitterly quarreling, we are told.

A particular bone of contention between the parents is a painting of some ducks flying over a marshy landscape. Ulises is particularly taken by this and explains to the others why ducks fly in a V-formation. It is so they can lighten the effort of long-distance flying and take turns gliding in the lead duck’s slipstream.

These four young victims, in their various ways, of family and social breakdown, are also lightening the load for each other, if only for this one afternoon. But by understating the emotional subtext of loss and neglect, and hedging it about with rueful comedy, Mr. Eimbcke makes it all the more powerful.

This is one not to be missed. And be sure you stay through the closing credits to catch one of the best jokes at the end.

jbowman@nysun.com