| GOOD LUCK, AND GOOD NIGHT : Gela Babluani's '13 / Tzameti' [7/10] |
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| Wednesday, 25 January 2006 | |
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Enjoyably Borgesian black-and-white thriller by Georgian writer-director living in France (what is this Georgia/France link? See Julie Bertucelli's Since Otar Left and the films of Otar Ioseliani). One presumes that the lead actor George Babluani is the director's brother: plays twentysomething roofer who flukes his way into a high-stakes, high-money 'contest', the details of which the viewer must not know in advance. The actor Babluani doesn't really have to do a great deal: he's surrounded by a terrific gallery of character actors, most of them in oddball roles. Film features not one but two outstanding performances: Pascal Bongard as the contest's MC, who bellows his lines as if permanently on the brink of hysterical psychosis; and Aurelien Recoing, suggesting he might just be European cinema's finest acting talent at the moment. Recoing - in a wonderfully taciturn, aggressive, tough characterisation - can be identified as our hero's would-be-nemesis quite early on. Indeed, once the contest begins the remainder of the action is disappointingly predictable: this removes what could and should be truly sickening tension. And the post-contest coda is a bit of a fizzle. Looks consistently great, though, and Babluani (the writer/director) scores by making us believe that there are all kinds of nefarious/decadent activities going on just beyond our field of vision: there's a surprising depth to his screenplay, which could easily have just been about his big gimmicky central idea. The contest itself is open to copious political/allegorical interpretation, though doesn't really make a great deal of sense when considered in sobriety afterwards. Yet another instance of a cocky young film-maker who, in an early work, deals with issues of fate and chance - the most obvious recent parallel being Juan-Carlos Fresnadillo's Intacto. Its unwieldy dual title aside, 13/Tzameti is the better film, though not quite the finished article. Neil Young 25th January, 2005 13 / TZAMETI : [7/10] : France 2005 : Gela BABLUANI : 93 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Curzon Mayfair, London (UK), 19th January 2006 - public show |
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