Publisert: 11. sep. 2008


FILM
Tricks (Poland 2007)
Written and directed by Andrzej Jakimowski
Cast: Damian Ul, Ewelina Walendziak
Time: 111 minutes
Rating: 5


Review by Guri Kulas

[Caption to the photo: ON THE PLATFORM: Both the calmness and rebellion, which in the small town is reflected in the trains.

There is enough drama in the lazy summer vacation days to tell many a story.

Together with the quests of the late summertime and warm humor, Tricks offers to us a finely composed story of the childlike longing. A charge of psychological suspense is strong enough to prevent us from being filled with nostalgia.

Stefek, the little brother, and his elder sister Elka are extraordinarily charming siblings, living in a squalid and partly depopulated small town. They make their living by selling novelties on the street and repairing car wrecks. Besides, they drink beer, flirt and while away the time. Simultaneously, they keep waiting for their chance to get away, like Elka, learning Italian. All this is happening to the accompaniment of the joyful and melancholic pop & folk music by Tomasz Gšssowski, which is irresistible.

Stefek considers his home town an ideal world. Consciously and subconsciously, he does his best to protect his sister from the temptations of work and men.

The calmness and rebellion is reflected in the trains which stop at the station for a while before going over a bridge high above the town. It is the train station where the brother and sister spend most of the time, encouraging each other to defy fate. They start a little game, which produces the domino effect. The game becomes especially exciting when Stefek makes up his mind to believe that one of the passengers who every day change trains at the station is his father that abandoned his family before Stefek's birth. Will the boy manage to play the game which is supposed to bring his father back? Perhaps the film also tells us quite a lot about today's life in Poland - when so many close relatives, friends and beloved persons are working abroad?

The plot and roles are greatly and subtly built up around the daily routine repeated with small changes. The film goes from the familiar and safe to the new in a simple way. All this is illustrated with the life of a child who, like Stefek, is becoming adult.

I heartily recommend the unpretentious and light yet rich movie by Andrzej Jakimowski to everyone in need of a film to counterbalance a lot of scornful news of Poles in the papers.

Guri Kulas
guri.kulas@klassekampen.no


Written and directed by: Hanne Larsen
Featuring: Bjorne Bondevik, Magnar Gustavsen, Henrik Carlyle
Running time: 15 minutes

Rating: 5

Evil and conscience depicted in consistent manner

The award-winning short film Varde by Hanne Larsen, screened before Tricks, is a harbinger of a great film talent and able expert on people. Larsen is responsible both for the screenplay for and direction of her psychological thriller about a young nouveau riche tormented by increasing remorse.
A timid elementary school pupil Johan wants to be accepted by the coolest boys in his grade. His fight against his own social decline and moving up the hierarchic ladder drive him to make an ethical choice he regrets long thereafter.
Varde is a fully unfolded story, told within 15 minutes, whose plot and characters become embedded in our memory. The movie fills its form perfectly. The close-ups of the camera, body language as well as snowy and dark winter days play their roles well, too. The acting of the boys who play the leading parts is also impressive.

[Varde - a cairn of stones raised to mark a mountain path, annot. by trans.]

Guri Kulas
guri.kulas@klassekampen.no