Reviews

As a rule I am not a big fan of omnibus or anthology films (a single film where different segments are directed by different directors). Usually they are based on a single premise and you either buy the premise or you don't. They tend to be gimmicky. Often they're basically exercises in style not really concerned that much with narrative or storytelling as they are with style and technique. The director's primary goal is to set the overall tenor, mood and pacing of a film. No matter how in sync the directors you always end up with uneven segments. Some fit and some don't. Some are better and some are worse. And that's by design. Otherwise why make an omnibus film. They might be fun to make for those making them, but often not quite as much fun to watch. You either want to skip some segments or wish other segments were longer and you could see more. The premise of Vogelfrei is fairly simple and promising, four directors tell the story of a single man as he goes through life's stages. As the man goes through life each director, in theory, would bring a slightly different view of his life. As the man changes, so will the film. The first segment, Childhood directed by Janis Kalejs, introduces us to Teodors. Teodors is a child who seems to, as most children that age, still be finding his way around the world. He seems to be a natural leader who attracts others, but is never quite comfortable with the attention and the demands of social interaction. He doesn't shy away from contact, but it has to be on his own terms. He seems most comfortable and free when he is on his own. The second segment, Youth directed by Gatis Smits, shows us Teodor as a young man who seems to posses all of the qualities of a young man at his prime. He is good looking and seems to attract others. He is an exceptional hockey player who seems to be flawless on the ice. But despite all of that he seems lost and alienated from everything around him. He seems unsure of himself in any social settings. Not sure of what to say or do. He longs for companionship but isn't sure of how to go about it. The only place where he seems to find himself and solace is on the ice while skating circles around his competition. As confident and skilled as he seems on the slippery ice, its the seemingly solid footing of the world outside of the skating rink that gives him the most problems. The third segment, Adulthood directed by Janis Putnins, shows us Teodors as a successful business man. He has a fabulous apartment, a housekeeper, a successful and beautiful girlfriend. He seems to enjoy all of the trappings of a man who has made it and lacks for nothing material, but again seems lost and unsure of his path in life. The existential void in his life is a gaping hole which no matter what he does he can't fill. No matter how many hours he spends at the gym, or at the piano, or in bars trying to pick up attractive women he hungers for something which he just can't seem to sate no matter what he tries to do. This is a man who on the surface has everything he could possible desire, but who is haunted by some unexplained demons just below the surface which drive and torment him. He is a man who should be at peace with his surroundings, but is anything but. The last segment, Old directed by Anna Viduleja, shows us Teodor as a man finally at peace with himself. Teodors has left the trappings of the big city for the country side where he is now an organist in a small rural church and also acts as a bird guide and hunter for some well heeled big city folk. Teodors is a man of few words who doesn't seem to care what other people think of him or whether or not they need him. He seems to have finally found both himself and the path which he wants to pursue. Overall, Vogelfrei almost works as a film. Unfortunately, the weakest segment, and the one which needed to be the strongest, is Adulthood. While the transition from Child to Youth seems seamless, the transition from Youth to Adult seems forced and not exactly clear. While you can see the Child in the Youth you can't really see the Youth in the Man. We aren't really sure of how the Youth became the Man he is. The choices seem arbitrary and forced. Yes, this is still the same alienated child/man we saw in the previous segments, but why? We know its in the script and the character has the same name, but he seems to have nothing in common with what came before. The film's saving grace, however, is the last segment. In Old we can again see the Child and Youth in the eyes of the aging Teodors. It makes sense that they would become the man we now see on the screen. Its this last segment which redeems the film and makes it worthwhile watching.

If you were to judge the Latvians by their films you would have to arrive at the conclusion that the Latvians are a very, very unhappy people. Viesturs Kairišs' Tumšie brieži (The Dark Deer), based on a play of the same name by Inga Ābele, follows in that rich tradition of doom and gloom where things start out bad and then they get worse.

Latvian filmmakers seem to be primarily interested in making two types of film, the depressing or the tragic.

The characters' entire lives are spent in a cycle of manic depression punctuated by brief spells of exhausted catatonia. Few are the films offering escapist fare and simple entertainment. If a Latvian filmmaker were to make It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey would jump off that bridge, Clarence would not get his wings and be relegated to the depths of hell, and Mary would become Mr. Potter's unwilling mistress. And those would be the cheerful parts.

Tumšie brieži follows the lives of Aija (Elita Kļaviņa), Alfs (Kaspars Dimiters) and Augusts (Juris Žagars). The film opens with the three riding in a car. A pregnant Aija sits in the back, Alfs in the passenger seat and Augusts at the wheel. The relationships between the three aren't clear, but it's evident that they are intimately close. They're returning from an evening at the theater when the car runs into a deer and crashes. The next scene picks up 17 years later. Aija is now a semi-catatonic recluse tended to by Alf and his new wife Nadine (Maija Doveika), Aija's former nurse. They all live on a game farm and hunting lodge managed by Alfs and his father Opis (Pēteris Martinsons). Times are evidently hard, but a group of German hunters, among them Augusts who is now a successful businessman in Germany, has just arrived and the money they'll spend just might save the day.

There's just one problem. Ria (Kristīne Krūze), Aija's and Alfs' daughter, has grown up with and loves the deer. She will do everything in her power to disrupt the hunt and save them.

Kairišs is a talented filmmaker with a very strong feel for pacing, composition and mood. His 2001 Pa ceļam aizejot (Leaving By the Way) was a lyrical and mystical film despite some uneven performances. In Tumšie brieži we have the opposite. Despite some very strong performances from his cast, the film never really engages us. The characters somehow never really connect. We never seem to care about any of them. The motivation of the actors is never clearly explained.

While Aija is certainly a very attractive woman, we are never really sure why the two men would be so attracted to her or she to them. Why is Aija in the state she's currently in? An accident can certainly be a traumatic experience, but is that enough to drive Aija to madness? Why does Alfs not just run away from his crazy family and why does Nadine put up with any of it? Why did Augusts leave? And why did he come back? Obviously there's a lot of missing backstory. The film hints at its presence, but most of it doesn't find its way to the screen. Ultimately, the answer to all of these questions seems to be that it's in the script and that's the way the actors play it.

It's not that Tumšie brieži is necessarily a bad film. It has a definite feel to it and Kairišs' strong visual sense and feel for mood and pacing are evident. The acting, with the possible exception of Krūze, is strong. Both Dimiters and Žagars bring a presence to their roles which goes beyond just their lines of dialogue. Kļaviņa does the best with what the limited script offers her. Krūze, unfortunately, brings the least to the table. Her Ria seems to alternate between petulance and cliché teenage rebellion. It's Ria's role that has to be the focal point of the film. All the action flows through or from her. How much of that is the fault of Krūze and how much is the fault of the script is debatable, but it never really seems to come together on the screen.

Its not often the Latvians, like most of the smaller nations of the world, get to tell their side of the story and when they do the tendency is to make up for lost time. Aigars Grauba's Rigas Sargi (The Defenders of Riga) sets an ambitious agenda, the retelling of Latvia's 1919 war of Independence against the forces of Russian General Pavel Bermont-Avalov and German General Graf Rüdiger von der Goltz. Defenders focuses on the pivotal battle for Riga and the events leading up to it when Latvian forces, outnumbered 5 to 1, held on to Riga on November 11, 1919. The date is now celebrated as Lacplesa Diena (Bearslayer's Day), Latvia's equivalent of the USA's Veterans Day. Like Grauba's Baiga Vasara (Dangerous Summer) this is a big budget (at least by Latvian standards) crowd pleaser which doesn't aim for either subtlety or historical accuracy. It aims squarely at its primarily domestic audience and plays on some of their most firmly held mythology and themes and as such delivers on all accounts. Defenders to date is Latvia's highest domestically grossing film. The events of November 1919 are framed by a love story between Martins (Janis Reinis) and Elza (Elita Klavina). Janis, an idealistic everyman, leaves his Elza on their wedding date to answer the Tsar's call to defend the Russian empire (of which Latvia was a part of at the time) against German forces. As that war draws to a close Martins returns to Latvia, which by now has declared independence, and once again finds himself in the middle of a war. Elza unfortunately has gotten tired of waiting for him. While still retaining some strong feelings for him, her life, and she along with it, has changed and she's no longer sure of her love for the idealistic Martins, who once again is preparing to leave her behind to fight in a war which most likely can cost him his life. In Defenders Grauba again displays his talent for knowing his target audience and which emotional buttons to push. And push them he does none too subtly. The film's characters come across as two dimensional caricatures and the script sets the story in the starkest black and white, good v. bad, us against them, terms. The us are heroic and noble. The them are either murderous goons, incompetent buffoons or devious manipulators. This is not unusual in war films, but unfortunately, while extremely satisfying for the us portion of the audience, the film probably will not find much of an audience for those who have no emotional stake in either side. Having broken the box office domestically its highly unlikely that the film will find much of an audience outside of Latvia. Grauba, as in Vasara, certainly knows how to deliver a punch line, but the set up is unfortunately lacking. And it's the set up which makes punch lines most effective. His actors don't have much to work with, or perhaps its better to say that they have too much to work with. The script expects them to play to the last row in the house, and at that to the one person who sits in that row who is hard of hearing and near sighted, and play they do. The cast delivers as well as it can. There is real chemistry between the actors and when the script works, usually during its smaller moments which are unfortunately too few, the story comes alive and transcends its two dimensional themes. Overall, Defenders is a better film than Vasara and Grauba certainly shows promise. If not necessarily as a writer and director then perhaps as a producer. As a side note, it would be interesting to see Grauba working as a producer for such Latvian directors as Varis Brasla (Ziemassvetku Jampadracis) or Viesturs Kairiss (Leaving by the Way). By Latvian standards this is an epic film with a budget of $4 million and Grauba milks it for its worth. While by Hollywood's standards, where the average cost of a film can run over $50,000,000, this wouldn't qualify it even as a low budget indy, but by local standards its about as good as it can get. Too bad that once it leaves the friendly confines of its domestic market it will be lost on the global stage as a solid B film which international audiences wont find of much of interest since they have no emotional investment in the subject matter.

No one ever sets out to make a bad film, but somehow they get made anyway. "Drosme Nogalinat" (The Courage to Kill) is a bad film and in so many different ways that it's not easy to pinpoint where it went wrong or why it was made in the first place. It could be the script. It isn't often that you run across an oedipal complex story set in a strip club/bordello. Our Oedipal hero, Erik (Armands Reinfelds), seems to earn a living by cross-dressing (as, surprise, Erika) so that he can tag along with the girls when a patron decides to take one of them home. He then ransacks the house while the john has his way with the girl. The only time we see him actually attempt this he gets beaten to a bloody pulp. I say "seems" because he doesn't seem to do much other than hang out in the strip club. I'd imagine that couldn't be cheap. You would think that the owners of the club would eventually wise-up. It can't be good for business. Nor is it clear why exactly someone who has just scored two beautiful women would only pay attention to one of them while the other has free run of his house. I've never read Oedipus Rex or seen the play. I understand that it isn't very subtle either, but I don't think this is quite what Sophocles had in mind. But Erika does look stunning in her high heels. There are many other flaws in the script. You can't have an Oedipus without a father, but other than the predictable flashback scene where Erik watches his father make love to the maid that young Erik is in love with, we're not sure what motivates either character. The father just shows up and moves into Erik's apartment one day. Much to Erik's dismay. Where he was before, why he chose to show up just then, and why Erik doesn't just kick him out or just simply change the locks isn't made clear. Well, it's clear enough, but not particularly imaginative. Oedipus needs a father. Otherwise, it wouldn't be much of a complex. It could be the acting. As you can tell by the title and story this isn't a very subtle film.Neither are the performances. This is the kind of film where characters laugh too loud.Their feelings are spelled out on the screen in capital letters. There is no middle ground. It could be the direction. This film was based on a play and I would assume that the play wasn't nearly as bad, otherwise, why remake it as a film? Unfortunately, things that work in an intimate theater setting don't always work on film. You have to ratchet them down just a bit. For example, Erik is walking down a hallway and bumps into a stripper. They obviously have a past. She grabs him by the crotch and suggests he stop by later. Get it? The name of the production company that made "Drosme" is "Between Europe and Hong Kong Productions". I hope this was some sort of allusion to the film genres of Europe and Hong Kong. It would be the most creative touch of this film. Europe is famous for making films of artistry and depth. They are not afraid to tackle taboo subjects and present them in a way that does not pander to the lowest common denominator. When they work. When they don't they seem pretentious and boring. As exciting as witnessing a third-rate poet's therapy session in a badly lit room. Hong Kong is known for exciting action films which hide what they lack in nuance and story by keeping the action coming at such a furious pace and with such visual panache that you don't have much time to dwell on it. When they work. When they don't there is no amount of atmospheric lighting and fast paced editing that can make you not regret picking movies because of the cool cover art and the blurbs on the back of the video box. Europe and Hong Kong can be a wonderful combination when it works. In "Drosme" it doesn't and you are left with the worst of both worlds.

Juris Poskus' debut full length feature film Monotonija (Monotony), the Perspectives Award winner for first and second time filmmakers at the 29th Moscow International Film Festival, and a nominee for best full length feature film in this year's Lielais Kristaps, can be best described as a Latvian Dogme film as done by the English director Mike Leigh. The focus of the Dogme film movement, headed by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in the mid 90's, was to return to a more naturalistic style of film-making, one free of special effects, artistic flourishes or genre. It produced such diverse and notable films as Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's Mifune, Lone Scherfig's Italian for Beginners and Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration. Mike Leigh, the director of such well known and respected films as Secrets and Lies, Naked and Life is Sweet, is known for his improvisational style which relies heavily on his actors to create character, improvise dialog and develop the plot. While Monotonija doesn't exactly reach the lofty standards set by the aforementioned films, it comes close and, if nothing else, establishes Poskus as a talent to watch on the Latvian film scene.

The film is an improvised collaboration between Poskus, the director of the 2003 Lielais Kristaps winner for best documentary Bet Stunda Nak (But the Hour is Near), and actors from Jaunais Rigas Teatris (the New Riga Theater). They started out with only one precondition. Each character in the film needed to have a dream. "We wanted to make a movie about everyday banality where there is no big story. We just wanted to show small guy story that usually are not being shot in movies," said Poskus. What results is the story of a girl from a small Latvian village who leaves the routine monotony of small town life for what eventually turns out to be the routine monotony of the big city.

As the film opens Ilze (Iveta Pole) is part of a crew of cannery workers who still use old fashioned methods to catch fish which wouldn't seem out of place hundreds of years ago. As we follow Ilze through her daily routine we are introduced to a village where life and time seems to have stood still. It's a place where people still chop wood by hand and have to use that wood to heat their houses. It's a place where people still get their milk straight for the cow and rely on horses as their beasts of burden. It's a drab and gray dead end place with little future or promise for the young. Eventually Ilze comes across a newspaper advertisement for an open audition for a film shooting in Riga and after mulling it over with her boyfriend Ojars (Varis Pinkis) leaves him and her village behind for a shot at the big time in the big city. Arriving in Riga she moves in with her cousin Linda (Madara Melberga), fails the audition, has a fling with Archie (Artuss Kaimins), reconciles with Ojars, breaks up with Ojars, finds a new job and, in short, falls into the routine monotony of big city life. Monotonija's greatest strength is in capturing the zeitgeist of present day Latvia as it continues emerging from the shadow of the Soviet Union and into independence and the present of the European Union. It's a place where the young often find themselves with few options and where the future always seems to lie elsewhere. For those growing up in the rural areas it's in the big cities. For those who are already in the big cities it's in Ireland, and Germany, and the U.S. It's a country whose people seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle where they are always searching for that greener grass and that greener grass is always just slightly out of reach. Poskus documentarian's eye serves him well and allows the actors to disappear into their characters. When it works, like during the opening sequence when we are introduced to life in Ilze's village with virtually no dialog, we are treated to moments of movie magic where the line between fiction and reality blurs. When it doesn't work, like during Archie's exercise at self-absorbed and bad joke telling, it feels forced, artificial and, well, self-absorbed. Overall, Monotonija is an interesting film filled with talented, if sometimes spotty, performances that gives us a glimpse into the present day lives and experiences of Latvian youth.

The wolf in Latvian folklore and mythology can be a symbol of both menace and good. Peasants feared the wolf because it endangered their livestock and well-being. They also admired the wolf for its ruthless ability to survive even the harshest of environments and as a worthy and cunning competitor for natural resources.

The film Vilkatis Toms (Tom the Werewolf), based on the novel Pedas (Tracks) by Janis Maulins and directed by Eriks Lacis, tells the tale of Latvian peasant life in the 18th century. It was a time of legends, superstitions and a period in which Latvians transitioned from their indigenous beliefs to the Christianity brought by the German lords who now ruled them. These feudal lords ruled Latvia and its people with unrivaled power and repression, often using Christianity to justify their iron hand, which in turn made the local people hold on to their native beliefs that much stronger. It was a time when compared to the cruelty of the Lords it wasn't such a stretch to believe that werewolves can and do walk the land. The film sets the tone with the opening scene in which the village smith is being pulled in a cart after being flogged by the local lord for not paying his taxes in full. He remarks dryly to Toms (Gunars Cilinskis) that it was a smart lord who left his hands undamaged since a smith needs his hands to work. Shortly thereafter Toms' own life is touched by tragedy when the Lord's enforcers rape his wife and kill his father. After having killed one of the assailants Toms and his brothers escape into the forest to avoid certain death. It is in the forest that Toms decides to exploit the legend of the Werewolf and wreak vengeance on the Lord who destroyed his family. Vilkatis is not a great film. It tries too hard to straddle the line between fantasy and realism, but never really reconciles the two. The werewolf is too obvious of a metaphor for a society where people are turned into literal, rather than mythic, werewolves in that they are forced to live as wolves would. A few alphas at the top and everyone else nothing more than prey. It's pre-glasnost Soviet era film that mostly comes across heavy handed and dogmatic. Gunars Cilinskis, one of Latvia's best, and better known, Soviet era actors is good, if not inspired, in his role as Toms. There really isn't much in the script for him to do other than look intimidating with an occasional brooding moment thrown in for variety. The only real standout in the film is the cinematography of Davis Simanis. His camera truly captures the stark desolation of the Latvian forest in winter.

It is not often that I feel I have to watch a film more than once. Not because I missed some important plot point, but because I am not sure I liked or disliked the film. I am still not sure. The films of Janis Streics have that effect on me. "Mystery" is loosely based on real life events that took place in Krimulda, Latvia. It tells the story of an aging KGB agent Eduards Pavuls) who is forced to live the rest of his life in a house in whose basement he had tortured and murdered people during the summer of 1941. Yet, the film itself is really about much more than that. It is about film-making and contemporary life and the notions of guilt and responsibility. The film is told in three parts. The first, "Mea Culpa", is a film within a film. It is about the screening of the KGB agent's story. In the film within the film, the KGB agent hires two construction workers (Renars Kaupers and Andris Berzins) to brick up the door to the basement to prevent the ghosts of all those he had killed from coming after him. As the two workers discover the true nature of the job they resolve to avenge all those who had died by killing the Chekist, but eventually end up saving him from killing himself. Unfortunately, no one, other than the director (Arturs Skrastins), likes the finished product and it is decided that additional scenes need to be shot to improve it The second part, "Agnus Dei", is about the shooting of an additional horror scene to in which the ghosts, accompanied by a spectre of Jesus nailed to a cross, chase the Chekist. One of the people hanging around the shoot, a filthy drunken bum looking for a free drink, unbeknownst to anyone is the actual real life KGB agent. During a break in the filming, while no one is watching, he nails the actor (Kaupers) playing Jesus to the actual cross. The last part of the film, "Tuba Mirum", is about the relationship between the young actor (Kaupers), the film's producer (Ivars Kalnins) and the woman they both love (Aurelija Anuzite). It all comes to a head as the sadistic producer tries to rape Anuzite, Kaupers comes to her rescue, and with the help of the ghosts of the victims of the old parish house, they triumph over all. The major flaw of "Mystery" is that so much of the story is dependent on the fact that the film within the film is supposed to be flawed and we spend too much time watching a bad movie being made. It's not that this is a bad idea. Films about bad films are not a new genre. I can think of two examples, "Ed Wood" and "Living in Oblivion", that worked. However, neither of those films tried to focus on anything other than the basic premise. Streics tires to reach far beyond that by also making "Mystery" about the true life events of what happened to Latvia under Soviet occupation and all of the real and imagined scars that they left on the Latvian psyche. If he had focused on either story the film would have been much stronger. By trying to combine the two he succeeds in telling neither. This is not to say that "Mystery" is a bad film. There are many parts of it that work and others that are downright profound. Streics' combination of mysticism with realistic themes and execution show a great deal of talent and depth. The three parts all complement each other. You have layers upon layers of symbolism here. The real life events are often more absurd and surreal than their celluloid representation. Reality and fantasy blur and complement each other to the point where you can't tell them apart. All in all, while some of the parts might not work, the sum is greater than the whole.

The body of work of Juris Podnieks lends itself to superlatives that often sound too good to be true. His accidental death at the age of 42 deprived Latvian film of an incredible talent who would have been entering the prime of this career. His skill and talent combined to make a filmmaker who would be considered great not only in the context of Latvian film, but by any global cinematic standards. This is made even more extraordinary when taken in the context of where and when he made his films. Working under Soviet rule as a documentarian, a genre that demands clarity and truth under a government that provided neither, he managed to make singular films that withstand the test of time. Perhaps no other film exemplifies this better than "Vai Viegli But Jaunam?" (Is it Easy to be Young?). Released in 1986 the film played to packed houses across the Soviet Union and to critical accolades in the West. The film opens with rock concert footage spliced with coverage of the trial of several youths who were charged with the vandalism of a train at the conclusion of that concert. Podnieks contrasts the exuberance and implied rebel spirit of the concert with shots of the accused standing uncomfortably before those who would judge them. There is no question how this trial will turn out. It's a forgone conclusion. They don't stand a chance before these authoritarian figures who deliver the "facts" without passion or emotion and with an unwavering conviction of their "right" and "righteousness." The accused don't even attempt to defend themselves, not as an admission of guilt, but with a hopeless resignation to their fate. The only one of them to even attempt to raise a defense is eventually sentenced to several years of hard labor. And so starts the exploration of whether it is easy to be young. Podnieks presents a variety of subjects in various settings providing us with a wide cross section of youths from various walks of life and divergent destinations. He creates a snapshot of time which not only captures the difficulties of growing up, but also of the Soviet Union as it was beginning to unravel under its own banality, hypocrisy and utter disregard for humanity. We meet an eager Krishna who seems to be rebelling against what he perceives as a corrupt society, but who does so by replacing one form of blind allegiance with another. Down with Lenin Up with Hari! We meet a young punk who is exceptionally articulate, intelligent and informed, but for all of that can't see beyond his own fatalistic nihilism. There's a young girl who failed in her suicide attempt being browbeaten by those who are supposed to cure her and a first time filmmaker who isn't sure of what he wants to say but knows that he needs to say something. All of them will seem familiar to those of us who can remember entering adulthood regardless of where and when we did so. But perhaps the most poignant moment in the film is the before and after interviews with young conscripts who were sent to Afghanistan. The contrasts are as shocking as those of the most cynical and broken combat veterans as seen in any documentary about war and its consequences. Watching a young veteran walking through a city filled with people on whose behalf he had believed to be fighting and in defense of a system and ideals that he no longer can share is as powerful of an image as I've seen on film. Podnieks greatest strength is in getting these individuals to reveal so much of their selves. We get the feeling as if we are sitting in on a late night conversation between friends where they let down their guard and reveal their true selves and feelings. Even more extraordinary is that Podnieks got them to do so in a time and a place where public introspection of this kind often had severe consequences. A place where thinking the wrong thing was considered to be as bad, if not more so, as doing the wrong thing. The film's greatest strength is in the way that it shows what it means to "grow up," and answering the title question with: It never is, nor should it ever be.

The best fiction films are the ones that manage to capture some element of real life. It doesn't matter if they are set in a galaxy far, far away or taken straight from today's headlines. They feel real no matter how contrived. The best documentary films work in reverse. They take real life and give it scale and resonance that makes one forget that what we are watching is the mundane and common. They take things and events in life that most of us don't pay too much attention to or take for granted and elevate them to epic status. Ivars Seleckis' documentaries Skersiela (Crossroad Street) and Jaunie laiki Skersiela (New Times at Crossroad Street) accomplish this with such effortless ease that one forgets that these are documentaries. They feel real and surreal at the same time. Both films take place in a small street in the Pardaugava section of Riga. The first was filmed in 1988 and the second 10 years later in 1998. The first film slowly introduces us to the residents of Crossroad Street. There's Julis the cab driver and his arch-enemy and neighbor, Aldis, a stone mason and part-time preacher, who has set up a what seems to be a major monument-making factory in his backyard. It's a noisy undertaking and a constant source of irritation to straight-laced Julis. There's poor Daiga, pregnant and abandoned by her lover. She lives as an unregistered guest of her cousin in the same house as Julis, his wife and his daughter. She fears that any moment she will be kicked out into the street. The house itself was built by and belonged to her grandfather, a famous Latvian writer, during Latvia's independence. It has been turned into communal housing by the Soviets. Daiga is now nothing more than a squatter. There's Osis, feeble-minded but gentle, who lives with his 80-year-old mother. There's Tolik, the son of a Latvian mother who was deported to Siberia and a German father whom she met and fell in love with there. He speaks only Russian and can barely move because of an untreated childhood disease he contracted in Siberia. There's Peteris and Olga, a bickering but loving, easy-going old couple who grind horseradish in their backyard for sale in the market. There's even a glimpse of the mysterious Casino Plumins tooling around in his Zigulis. There are many more, but they all present a cross-section of Latvia and, as the title suggests, find themselves at the crossroads as a dying empire takes its last gasps. Their lives are filled with chaos and pathos. Aldis, the stone mason preacher, keeps mouthing homilies about the spiritual life while in constant pursuit of earthly rewards. Julis finds himself lost in this new chaotic world, not nostalgic for the past, but resentful at having to live in a world in which a taxi driver no longer has the same status as his enterprising stonemason neighbor. Then there is poor Daiga who, despite it all, keeps smiling through the tears. Jaunie laiki Skersiela revisits the neighborhood 10 years later. Nothing is the same and at the same time it all seems strangely familiar. Daiga, the helpless young woman, is now a mother with a 10-year-old son. The house from which she was kicked out is now entirely hers and she is busy making it into her little safe haven. She has a job and a man and a healthy and happy son. She is strong and vibrant and in full control of her life. Aldis is still as devout as ever, if not more so, but his business has fallen on hard times. Racketeers have burned down his modern workshop and he now has to fight for control over his property with Galina, his father's second wife. Daiga has just turned off his water, water which he has been poaching off her pipes for his workshop all of those years. Peteris and Olga are still making horseradish in the back yard and bickering in loving fashion. And Casino Plumins is now tooling around in a brand new Mercedes and living in a house right out of the pages of Architecture Digest with his beautiful artist wife. A lot of old shacks on Crossroad Street are being torn down or remodeled and rebuilt. There is also a huge new addition to Crossroad Street: a mansion built by a mysterious and wealthy gypsy. Side by side we see modest, well-kept family homes with tidy gardens and run-down buildings with junk-filled yards. Times have changed mostly for the better, but in some ways for the worse. Latvia is independent and people have freedom to take control of their lives. But there is still chaos and uncertainty. People are rebuilding, but the first thing everyone seems to put around their property is a sturdy fence. An abandoned freight train rests on the nearby railroad tracks. Everyone has to duck and walk under if they want to get to the store. Osis now receives his disability pension in lats and not rubles, but it is still barely enough to get by and perhaps even less than it was before. Tolik's health has taken a turn for the worse. And Casino Plumins, despite all of his wealth, seems sad and lost and hungry for something that he just can't reach. The magic of Skersiela and Jaunie laiki Skerrsiela is that they allow us an entry into these peoples' lives. It's an honest look that neither glamorizes nor minimizes real life -- real life as lived by real people in extraordinary times.

Movies are often a reflection of their times. This makes them neither good nor bad, but they don't always age well. What seemed like a searing and deep exploration of the human condition becomes a simple and dated period piece with the passage of time. To truly appreciate them you have to judge them in the context of their times. Gunars Piesis' Naves Ena (In the Shadow of Death) transcends time. It is about universal themes and characters that are just as valid today as they were in 1898 when Rudolfs Blaumanis first wrote the story or in 1971 when it was filmed. The simple structure and setting of the film allows Piesis and his cast to focus on fleshing out the characters and making a stark and limited location seem real and infinite. The emotional center of the film, like that of the classic Zvejnieka Dels (The Fisherman's Son), is Latvia's ties to the sea and the lives of those whose livelihoods depended on it. On an early spring day a group of fishermen are stranded on an ice flow that breaks away from the pack. These are hard men. They hold no illusions about the sea, their chances or fate. As the ice flow drifts further and further from the shore and their food and water supplies start to run out and any hope of rescue fades each has to confront their own mortality. Each of the characters undergoes a change, or more accurately, the illusion of who they are is slowly stripped away layer by layer as their odds of survival dwindle. Starring some of Latvia's best known and well respected actors (Eduards Pavuls, Gunars Cilinskis and Karlis Serbis among others), at the prime of their careers, Naves Ena is a film that from beginning to end never let's up. From the opening sequence as one of the fishermen dives into the frigid waters in a desperate attempt to make it back to the shore only to drown in seconds, to the ending when even the prospect of rescue is complicated by the fact that the rescue boat can only take some and the men have to draw lots to see who will get rescued and who will remain behind to face certain death, Naves Ena is a film that isn't afraid to look into the void. The true strength of the film is that we all can see bits of ourselves in these characters and through them are forced to examine our own notions of nobility, heroism and the inevitability of death.

"Limuzins Janu Nakts Krasa" (Limousine the Color of St. John's Night) is perhaps Latvians' favorite film. Like the American Christmas tradition of "It's a Wonderful Life," it has become a staple on Latvia's TV screens around Jani, St. John's day, the Latvian celebration of the summer solstice. Written by Mara Svire it is director Janis Streic's best film. It is a film that can be watched on many levels. At the surface it is a broad comedy with universally recognizable characters and themes that are also uniquely Latvian. Aunt Mirta (Lilita Berzina) wins a car in a lottery and faster than you can say "prieka", relatives and acquaintances descend on poor Mirta's house like locust. There's her nephew (Uldis Dumpis) who, with wife and son in tow, gets off a tour bus in mid excursion and hitchhikes to Mirta's house for a visit the moment he hears of her windfall. There's her former daughter in law, with husband and daughter along, who pop in for a visit out of the blue. Even her next door neighbors, hard working and earnest farmers, are suddenly more helpful and attentive. None of this is lost on Mirta and she makes the most of it. It's a very Latvian film. There's a Latvian folk tale about a poor traveler who stops by a farmstead. Being hungry he asks the farmer's wife for some food and she promises him a meal in exchange for work. The labor is backbreaking, but he does it without complaint. When he finishes, the stingy farmer's wife tries to renegotiate. Pleading poverty she offers him some thin soup. He doesn't complain, but as he sips the watery brew he remarks that the soup is missing something. It needs something to go with the broth. The farmer's wife apologizes that she has nothing else to offer. All she has left is an old ax. The ax will be good he replies. The farmer's wife is incredulous, but he reassures her that in his travels he has often had ax soup and its one of the best meals he has ever had. You just have to know how to prepare it properly and it will be as tender and savory as the finest cut of meat. The farmer's wife seeing an opportunity to make something out of nothing drops the ax in the pot, but no matter how long they wait, the ax stays, well, as hard as an ax. The traveler suddenly remembers that the last time he had ax soup it also had some potatoes in it. Maybe that's what's wrong? The potatoes tenderized the ax. Unfortunately we have no potatoes. And just as suddenly the farmer's wife remembers that she might have some potatoes after all. Into the pot they go. The ax is still as hard. Maybe it was the carrots? There's carrots. Cabbage? Here's cabbage. On and on and into the pot they all go. Of course the ax never becomes any softer, but in the meantime the traveler has himself quite the meal. "Limuzins" is like that folk tale in reverse. It's the poor old farmer Mirta who exploits the greed of her guests. It doesn't take long before they are cutting her grass, building her a new cellar and doing all of her cooking and cleaning. All begging at the chance for being the one's to end up with the car. The film can also be viewed as one of those typical Soviet morality plays about bourgeoisie values being a corrupter of the human spirit. However, most importantly it's a film that took this very superficial party line and, between the lines, managed to pillory and parody that very same Soviet system. Where else but in the Soviet Union would an 80 year old woman who can't drive would end up with a car that she has no use for and doesn't really want, while everyone else has to scrape and then wait for years to end up with one? Even the title itself is a sarcastic reference to a car that was the Soviet equivalent of a Ford Pinto in a color that can be best described as off-white. "Limuzins" works on all of those levels. Like most of Streic's films its about characters and relationships. Its filled with humor and warmth and great performances, but it is it's ability to amuse while parodying a system that didn't tolerate being parodied that is perhaps its greatest achievement.

Labas Rokas (Good Hands), the Estonian and Latvian co-production directed by Peeter Simm, is filled with characters and character, sadness and humor. There's Margita (Rezija Kalnina), a two-bit thief who along with her sister will steal anything that isn't nailed down. There's Adolf (Lembit Ulfsak), an engineer in a dying industrial town that no longer needs his skills, and his best friend, Dr. Lepik (Tonu Kark), who performs dental surgery on himself with the help of a mirror but without the benefit of anesthetic. There's Arnold (Tiit Sukk), Adolf's son, the town's policeman whose primary job seems to be to ticket his father each time he catches him speeding. And then there's Pavo (Atis Tenbergs), a caustic and jaded 8-year-old who seems to be going on 80. All of their lives become entwined when Margita, after stealing a car with her sister in Jurmala, gets into an accident and has to flee across the border into Estonia. She reaches the outskirts of the town of Vineeri (Plywood), named after a now non-functioning and shuttered plywood factory, and attempts to steal Adolf's car while he is taking a swim in a river. As she is trying to get away she notices that Adolf still hasn't come up for air. Thinking that he is drowning she jumps out of the car and tries to save his life, much to Adolf's disappointment and surprise. Eventually they end up back in Adolf's house. When Margita finds out about Arnold the cop, who shares his father's house, she realizes that hiding in the house of a policeman might be the best way to wait for the heat to blow over. What ensues is an exploration of character and relationships. Simm weaves a simple story that is brought to life by wonderful performances from his cast. Rezija Kalnina is almost perfect as a seemingly amoral thief with no loyalty to anyone or anything, but who once literally walked on glass to prove her love. Lembit Ulfsak and Tonu Kark are perfect as a the quarrelsome and quirky odd couple who have long ago learned to accept each other despite their differences. Tiit Sukk, like Kalnina, is good as the lonely and morose cop, but at times seems a bit too wooden in his performance. The true standout of the cast, however, is young Atis Tenbergs. When his real mother (Maija Apine) is admitted to the hospital, he adopts Margita as his surrogate mother and mentor. Its not a novel cinematic device, but Tenbergs pulls it off perfectly as a child in a world of mixed-up and often childish adults who has to be both a child an and adult. Lab?s rokas is also an interesting exploration of the two different national characters of Estonians and Latvians and how they perceive each other. Too often the Baltics are seen as a single entity where the people are indistinguishable from each other outside of their languages and borders. The rest of the world might perceive them as "the Baltics," but they can be as different from each other as night and day. As Pavo's mother explains to Margita, she loves the town of Vineeri and its people but she is desperate for a conversation with a fellow Latvian. The locals never seem to go beyond hello and goodbye. On the other hand, the locals perceive the Latvians as "chatty" and "aggressive" and while in public seem remote and cold, on an individual level speak to each other about topics and in an intimacy that most of us are incapable of. At the heart of it Lab?s rokas is about individual choices -- and living with those choices -- as well as loyalty. It is a wonderfully quirky film about wonderfully quirky people who have learned to accept and live with each other. The film has won a few awards on the European film circuit and the Latvian "Lielais Kristaps" for best film. It deserves a broader audience.

For a small nation Latvia seems to have produced a disproportionate number of exceptionally talented documentary filmmakers. Perhaps owing to the development of the school of poetic documentary film-making in Riga in the 1960's the likes of Herz Frank, Juris Podnieks, the Selecki clan, Una Celma and Laila Pakalnina enjoy a global reputation. Out of them all it is quite possibly Frank who is the best known and well respected. The man behind such classics as "10 Minutes Older," "The Seven Simeons," and "The Last Judgment," he has served as a teacher, mentor and an inspiration to several generations of Latvian filmmakers. In Flashback the man who devoted his entire career to examining and recording the lives of others turns inwards and focuses the lens on his own life and career. What emerges is a portrait of a man who has been driven by the need to understand the human condition and who at the age of 75, facing open heart surgery, is not sure whether he has seen enough to understand and yet weary from having seen too much. Part travelogue, part biography and part mediation on the nature of documentary film-making and life, Frank mixes footage from his previous works with more recent work to accentuate and attempt to illuminate his present. Opening with footage of the OMON attack in Riga in 1991 which took the lives of cameramen Andris Slapins and Gvido Zvaigzne, Frank freezes on an image of Juris Podnieks (a frequent collaborator and former student and cameraman of Frank's), as his face registers the shock and realization that his own cameramen have just paid with their lives for his and their desire to pursue and document reality. (Podnieks himself would die in a tragic scuba diving accident only a year later.) As Podnieks' facial expressions play out in slow motion, Frank cuts to an excerpt from his and Podnieks perhaps best known work Ten Minutes Older. Ten Minutes Older was a single take shot with minimal lighting recording the reactions of children as they are watching a puppet show. Their faces covering the spectrum of human expression and emotion from joy to sorrow. From there he cuts to the face of one of the children in Ten Minutes Older in the present day. The setting is now completely different. Rather than a play in which we expect emotion, we now find the child as a man in the middle of an international bridge tournament where the expression of emotion needs to be suppressed at all costs. The face is older, but unmistakable in its identity. What may be hidden from his opponents sitting only inches away across the table is evident in the naked eye of the camera. It is this nakedness and what it ultimately shows us, and our desire and need to see it that is at the core of Flashback. The film covers In this day of an endless glut of reality TV shows which play to our most prurient desires Flashback reminds of us our higher need for the nakedness of "reality" that the camera can provide, our fascination with it and what it can ultimately tell us about ourselves. The major weakness of the film is that it is at times disjointed and discordant. The film attempts to do too much all at once. Any of the topics he touches on, from his open heart surgery to his wife's long illness and death, from his relationship with Podnieks to the follow up to the characters in Ten Minutes Older, his father's life and legacy, his own journey from Riga to Jerusalem, among many others, deserved and would have been better served by their own films. We are often left wishing that he had stayed with a particular story line while Frank and his camera have already moved on. Even the footage from his past works, while poignantly accentuating the present, often leaves us desiring a second and longer look at the past rather than returning to the present or jumping to the next subject. Despite this flaw the film is a fascinating look at a man fascinated with looking at people and the lives they lead. A collage sometimes leaving us wanting for more, but also leaving us with no doubts as to the skills of its maker.

This is my first memory of a Latvian film. I recently saw it again. Unfortunately, it has not aged well. The cinematography is average at best, the sound is tinny, the story over-blown, and the acting hammy. About the only part of it that doesn't seem to have aged is Raymonds Pauls soundtrack. Then again, if you aren't a big fan of Pauls that isn't much to crow about either. Despite all of that, I still loved it and always will. You have to take this film in its context. You have to see it through the eyes of an 8 year old, sitting in a darkened theater eyes glued to the screen. An eight year old who was growing up in a confusing world not of his own making. Trying to make sense of a contradictory existence that adults only whispered about. I was a Latvian and I lived in Latvia, but I lived in Soviet Latvia. Up to this point my mythology only contained Soviet heroes. They might have spoken Latvian. They might have been Latvian, but at the core they were Soviets. This was the first time I had ever seen Latvian heroes and I couldn't tear my eyes from the screen. Basically, Vella Kalpi, is a swashbuckler. The film itself is based on the stories of Rutku Tevs, but anyone familiar with the many variants of the "Three Musketeers" will recognize the plot. It's about three young men who, motivated by both circumstance and national pride, rise up to protect Riga from a foreign invasion. They do this with strength and cunning, exhibiting all of the traits that we consider to be Latvian: Hard work, loyalty, and a sense of humor. I am sure that the film was supposed to reinforce the Soviet ideals of being vigilant to bourgeoisie ideals, our heroes are strapping farm lads with simple tastes and simple needs, and all of the villains were either nobility or foreigners, but all I could see was Latvian heroes doing great deeds with a great bit of panache. This is who I wanted to be when I grew up. It was my first exposure to Latvian role models outside of my own family. You might think it hyperbole, but you have to understand the total control that the Soviets had over all media. The goal of Soviet media was to produce good Soviets and not good Latvians. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that this movie managed to bypass of all of that and while on the surface seems to reinforce Soviet mythology, at its heart it is about Latvian identity and Latvian ideals.

The beauty of children's films as a genre, and one of its major drawbacks, at least for adult viewers, is that the suspension of disbelief is a given. Children have no problem with accepting things and situations that adults would question.

"Pa Balta Furgona Pedam" (On the Trail of the White Lorry) succeeds, and fails, due to this simple quirk. Furgons has all the elements of a rollicking tale; hidden treasure, Saint Bernard puppies, cute kids, mystery, chases and adult villains that make Cruela DeVille seem nice. Sadly the acting, mostly of the adult cast, is so hammy that for adults it will be difficult to look past it. Kids on the other hand will probably enjoy the film for what it is, a simple tale of good over evil.

Three neighborhood friends in early post-Soviet Latvia have their eyes on a litter of Saint Bernard puppies. The problem is that the owner of the puppies isn't willing to just simply give them away. This is the newly independent capitalist Latvia and for each thing there is a price. A price that the kids can't meet, but the main bad guy who earns part of his living by selling Saint Bernard fur hats can. When the kids discover some pieces of jewelry hidden in the frame of an old bed salvation seems near at hand. Then the bed disappears. And the chase is on.

The kids are great in their roles doing the things that kids do. Unfortunately, the over emoting adult cast drags the film so far down that even the kids performances can't raise it back up.

Liktendzirnas is a flawed film that manages to capture the spirit of the years shortly following Latvian independence despite it's tendency towards overwrought sentimentality and substandard production values. Eduks, Ivars Kalnins, is a college professor caught between the reality of the present and the desire to regain the past. He has inherited a mill. To him the mill holds priceless sentimental value. To his ex-wife and children the mill has only of monetary value. He wants to restore the mill to it's former glory and live happily ever after in it's pastoral setting. Everyone else is pressuring him to sell it and get all that he can while he can. There is no shortage of buyers, including Vincent, Romualds Ancans, a quasi-Mafiosi, who wants to turn the mill into a Roman bath/brothel. Eduks is joined in his struggle to restore the old mill by Agnese, Agnese Zeltina, and Beisiks, Arturs Skrastins. Agnese is an old student of his who, in a twist of fate, had lost her eyesight years ago after being struck by a car driven by Vincents. Beisiks is a young musician wandering from job to job who knows every Latvian folk song, but dresses like a Metallica groupie. This broad soap opera outline is symbolic of all that was happening in Latvia at the time and, to a point, is continuing in the present day. Shortly after independence, as people reclaimed properties usurped by the Soviets, similar real-life stories were played out all over Latvia. The joy of our regained independence often had to take a back-seat to the need to live and the desire to thrive in a Capitalist society. A society in which traditional Latvian values, at times, clashed head on with the realties of having to make a buck. Eduks represents the idealized model of what a Latvian is. Strong, stoic, and with a lyrical love of the land. Always willing to do the right thing. Vincent symbolizes the forces of change that were sweeping through the nation. He borders the fine line between a legitimate businessman and an old fashioned crime boss. Beisiks symbolizes the lost youth of the current generation. Aimless and fatalistic. Proud of his heritage while adopting the mannerisms and language of Western culture. Trying to bridge the two into one. Agnese represents the Latvians who have decided to make the best of what they have despite all of the obstacles. Liktendzirnas is not a great film, but it is a good one. Streics starts off slowly, but eventually manages to create a believable story full of lyricism and warmth. However, what really makes the film work is the performances of the actors, primarily of Skrastins. Skrastins manages to capture the dichotomy of Latvian youth. Caught in a mess that was not of their making and persevering with a combination of fatalistic resignation and youthful exuberance and optimism. Kalnins brings just the right note of soul to Eduks without, as often happens in Latvian films, making him seem overly dramatic and brooding. This film could have easily have turned into a heavy melodrama, but in the end it manages to tell it's story with humor and warmth. It captures the hardships of adjusting to a new world and manages to show the difficulty of reconciling our expectations with the realities life. There is a bit of these characters in all of us.

`Pa Celam Aizejot' (Leaving by the Way) is a lyrical and mystical film that is hampered at times by uneven performances, but bolstered by excellent direction from Viesturs Kairiss. The winner of the 2002 Lielais Kristaps (Latvia's equivalent of the Oscar), and based on the classic Latvian story Dullais Dauka (Crazy Dauka) by Sudraba Edzus, Leaving transports the viewer into a world filled with beauty and heartbreaking tragedy. It transforms a fanciful fairy tale filled with symbolism to the present without losing a single beat or softening its mystical approach. The setting and characters might be `modern', but the forces that drive them are as old as love and jealousy, curiosity and faith. Set in a Latgalian village `Leaving' follows the lives of the village's inhabitants in the wake of a tragic event: the loss at sea and presumed drowning of Ivars (Andris Keiss), husband of Ilga (Elita Klavina) and father of Dauka (Davis Bergs) and Liga (Liga Cizevska). Ilga is so overcome with grief that she can't bring herself to tell her children of the death of their father. This is her way of not only protecting them, but also of shielding herself. Despite her best efforts, however, all of them have to deal with the same thing, their longing for someone (or something) whom they love but who is out of reach. Maybe forever. Each copes in their own way. Ilga has an affair with Viktor (Eriks Vilsons), a local married man, Dauka skips school and Liga often runs away from home. In many ways it's a tried and true dramatic formula no different from countless other films which have traversed similar tragic terrain and some audiences might be turned off by a story that starts out unhappy and ends unhappier. What separates this film from the pack is it's poignant lyricism and mystical approach to the subject matter, and, in a manner of speaking, it's very `Latvianess'. Ilga might be having a run of the mill tawdry affair, but the wife (Ruta played by Guna Zarina) of Ilga's lover happens to be not only the local postmistress, but also a practicing witch and healer to whom quite a few of the villagers turn for aid and comfort. Or to deny others aid and comfort as the need arises. There's magic, but it's neither black nor white. When Dauka skips school it's not to watch TV, but to hike through the forest while having imaginary (or are they?) conversations with his father. When Liga runs away she melts into the countryside like a woodland nymph. All of this is handled with such everyday matter of factness that it seems as real and natural as using a phone or riding in a car. When Ruta dances naked at midnight in the middle of a field to ensure that a potion she has prepared will accomplish what's needed, it seems as normal and familiar as when earlier in the day she delivers a telegram. `Leaving' is not a perfect film, but it's not trying to be. It's not really interested in telling a story or following a linear narrative so much as desiring to capture a mood or a feeling. It's a film that, supplemented by rich and lush cinematography from Janis Eglitis and almost seamless editing by Juta Brante, shows great promise for Kairiss. This was his feature-length debut, and hopefully another step in what will be a long and prolific career.

Great films don't always need to be `Great' films. They don't have to be perfect or about important topics. Sometimes they can just simply be small gentle films that tell their story with heartfelt sincerity, humor and warmth. `Ziemassvetku Jampadracis' is such a film. `Jampadracis' tells the story of the Cirulisi, a tight knit family down on their luck, and their trials and tribulations during the Christmas season. Father Cirulitis has just been turned down for a job as a music teacher. He can barely support the family as a piano teacher with far too few students. They can't even afford a Christmas tree. The landlord is threatening to kick them out. The kids have just received their report cards and some of the marks are not, well, they are not the kind that you would want your parents to see. The eldest son has been summoned to the police station falsely accused of hitting a policeman with a snowball. And, to top it all off the child prodigy that the two youngest kids have been entrusted with entertaining has just been injured on the eve of his concert, for which they are sure to be blamed. What ensues is a story that is as genuine as it is warm. A wonderful tale that transcends whatever weaknesses it might have simply because it is told from the heart. The Cirulisi might be poor and going through hard times, but the love that they have for each other can triumph over anything that comes their way. In contrast, the family of the child prodigy, which has all the wealth and status that anyone could possibly need, seems lost and sad because they lack precisely the one thing that the Cirulisi have been blessed with. The winner of several awards, among them Chicago's and Frankfurt's children's film festivals, `Jampadracis' might be characterized as a children's film, but it is a film for the child in all of us. It transcends the genre. The performances do not contain a single false note and Varis Braslas direction and the script by Alvis Lapins are exemplary.

Three young soldiers discover a woman's shoe on a sandy beach and chaos breaks out. Sirens go off, officers appear and hurried orders are shouted out. Welcome to Liepaja, Latvia, 1950. The new frontier. A time of paranoid suspicion, absurd reality and good old fashioned Latvian stoicism.

The story of Laila Pakalninas `Kurpe' (The Shoe) reflects the absurdities of Latvian life in the early days of the Soviet occupation. This was the period in which the sand of Liepaja's coastline was dredged each night by a tractor, like a conscientious golfer would a sand trap, and the following morning checked for fresh footprints. When a pair of border guards discover a woman's shoe in the sand that wasn't there the previous night, it could only mean one thing. A saboteur must have landed. It is the only possible explanation. The commander of the border guards orders them, in classic Soviet fashion, to find the woman to whom the shoe belongs in the most direct manner possible. They are to traverse the city and to see whom the shoe will fit. A bit of Soviet Cochranism `If the Shoe will fit, you must convict.' What ensues is an absurd tale that reflects the absurdities of Soviet life. Pakalnina's direction and cinematography perfectly complements the realities of the time. The film is an `art' film and as such might not appeal to those who are used to more traditional forms. There is very little dialogue and the plot assumes that the viewer understands the backstory. The shot selections often will often have the characters shot in silouethes or as reflections. The cinematography is in high contrast black and white. However, for what it tries to be it is a nearly perfect film. The pacing and the style perfectly capture the helplessness and pragmatism of Soviet Latvian life. The ability of people to persevere with stoic resignation, all the while never quite submitting to their fate. Pakalnina's background is in experimental and documentary films and it shows in the best possible way in this film. `Kurpe' resists the temptation to judge the period, but presents it in a straightforward manner allowing the audience to reach their own conclusions. Often films like this tend to be a bit heavy, but `Kurpe' never crosses the line. Pakalnina is greatly helped by the actors ability to appear natural. Their understated performances make the film's absurd tone even more poignant. In many ways this film shows how to accomplish a lot with a little. According to Pakalnina, the story and the style were driven by the fact that she could not find the funding for some other projects and in the meantime decided to film a story with what she had available.

Director Ivars Graubas' "Baiga Vasara" (Dangerous Summer) reaches high, but never quite attains its lofty goals. It is technically a great looking movie with a Dolby soundtrack, but is hampered by a weak script, uneven acting, and spotty direction. Part of the problem is that Grauba is never quite sure which story he wants to tell. On the one hand it is a romantic story about a wartime love triangle between Izolde (Inese Caune), a young Baltic German student caught between the powerful Wilhelms Munters (Uldis Dumpis), the real life Latvian Foreign Minister, and Roberts (Arturs Skrastins), a powerless but idealistic radio reporter. On the other hand it is the story of the Latvian nation caught between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. If that wasn't enough, it also adds two subplots. One deals with Munters efforts to steal some overseas Latvian funds. The other deals with the role of journalists in a democratic society and the obstacles that they face. All of these are supposed to compliment each other, but unfortunately merely get in each others way. The screenplay had five co-authors, seldom a good sign. "Vasara" is at its best when it focuses on the journalists. This is mainly due to the performances of Skrastins and, as Roberts reporting partner Karlis, Janis Reinis. They both bring a realism to their roles that takes their characters beyond the mostly two dimensional performances of the other cast members. There is a genuine chemistry between the two. Grauba seems most comfortable when telling the story of what it takes to be a reporter and the obstacles that they have to face. Grauba, who also had a hand at the screenplay, and the writers, Pauls Bankovskis, Gabis, Janis Leja, and Andrejs Ekis have all, in one way or another, actually worked in broadcasting and are intimately familiar with the subject matter. The first rule of writing is write about what you know and, in this case, it shows on the screen. "Vasara " is at its weakest when it tries to tell the story of the Latvian nation. Partly this is due to the performances of the two leading actors, Dumpis as Munters and Uldis Vazdiks as Karlis Ulmanis. Their acting styles reflect the Social Realism style that was popular in the Soviet Union and the fact their craft was developed mostly on theater stages. Their performances lack the emotional depth needed for film. Their characters come across as two dimensional caricatures. This is something that might have worked on the stage where actors have to reach the cheap seats, but on screen it seems unnatural and forced. There has been quite a bit of criticism of the historical accuracy of the film and the roles of Munters and Ulmanis. However, it is important to remember that this is a work of fiction and history is always a matter of interpretation. I cannot vouch for the historical accuracy, but from a historical perspective the film's major weakness is that the historical story simply falls flat and never progresses beyond its two dimensional presentation. I doubt that this was by design. It was due to flawed execution. The other major problem is that history requires scale. You basically have two cinematic choices when dealing with history. You can either choose to tell it as an epic, for example "Lawrence of Arabia," and have a lot of sweeping wide angle shots, and a cast of thousands, to show the overwhelming obstacles and stakes, or you can choose to shoot it tight, for example "The Manchurian Candidate," and concentrate on the emotional and psychological obstacles and stakes. Grauba tried the first approach, settled for the second, but succeeds at neither. Of course, not all of this is Graubas fault. This particular story almost demands an epic approach, but that costs money. Money which Latvian filmmakers simply do not have access to. Then again, scale can be demonstrated in many ways. Grauba, for example, could have used newsreel footage to show the insurmountable odds that the Latvian nation faced. Instead he tries to fake it by shooting tight shots with epic implications. The only place where this stylistic approach seems to work is in the central plot line of the triangle between Izolde, Roberts and Wilhelms. Izolde is torn between her love for Roberts and Wilhelms' offer of security and the chance to escape Latvia for Germany just ahead of the rolling Russian tanks. The only weakness in this portion of the film is that there is very little chemistry between Izolde and Roberts, or even Izolde and Wilhelms. Caune is a good and capable actress, but she seems to be in a tug of war between the stylistic choices of the two actors. Skrastins with his naturalistic approach and Dumpis with his theatrical emoting place Caune in a tough spot. She tries to respond by adopting the style of whichever character she shares the screen with, but never really makes a connection with either. Overall, "Vasara" is not a bad film. Had it concentrated on telling just one of the stories it could have been a great film. It spreads itself too thin and tries to accomplish something which is just slightly beyond its reach, but in doing so it does have its moments of cinematic glory when the screen comes alive with the story of the Latvian people and the hardships that they had to endure during a period of history that seldom is dealt with from a Latvian perspective.