Armand
precise, minimalist, strange. almost a form of poem. maybe a visual haiku, story of a trip, a meeting and solitude. a circle. impressive images. memories from Bergman. and dust taste. a portrait. or only testimony. a search and its terminus point. a parable. or only fragments from a house and a garden. the mixing of algae remains for me the central image. a gesture like a prey. or only need to save essence of search. because, the actors , in this case, are shadows of places. and sign of subtle desire to be part of them. sure, after film end, a lot of hypothesis bloom. but it remains only the taste of honey and ash. and a white package. like last gift.
p-stepien
Based on the Locarno credentials of this movie (garnering six awards at that event, not counting many others) I decided to take a dive into some of my expatriate's work abroad. A very simple tale about Anne (Lotte Verbaek), who cuts away from everything connected to her previous life in Holland (most likely due to the death of her husband, but we can only speculate the real reason) and backpacks to Ireland. There she comes across an elderly fisherman, Martin, (the brilliant Stephen Rea), who lives in solitude in a desolate location close to the sea. On their encounter Anne is extremely rash, even rude, being in a state devoid of any warmth or friendliness. However they soon agree to an uneasy truce: Anne will work for food, but as long as no personal matters are touched.Set in untiringly beautiful locations of the Irish countryside the movie always manages to remain an eye-catcher (especially a fascinating peninsular, which is the main location of the movie), which helps keep the focus on the story itself, despite its very slowly unwinding rudimentary plot. Emotionwise I wasn't however fully convinced by Lotte Verbaek and additionally I did feel that several scenes/dialogues seemed not to fit the overall tone and logic of the movie. Nonetheless the whole story rings with a somber truth, as emotions and feelings catch the characters unawares, which leads to an absolutely heart-wrenching finale (the scene from the poster). Very simply crafted and set in the most basic human feelings it really has an unbelievable capacity to capture the attention and linger in memory.Despite it's flaws it remains a stunning, if very reserved, watch, which shows the immense potential of Polish-born Urszula Antoniak.
phantlers
I watched this alone, in a foreign cinema far from home and found it highly resonant. It is a love story, and one of some sort of healing of the senses.There are some exquisitely observed scenes, the sensuousness of her running the seaweed through her hands (several times) and their connectedness with nature form a counterpoint to their individual alienation and personal sorrow, their unrevealed grief. That and the scene in which she demonstrates an extraordinary culinary talent reveal a refinement that he shows us from the outset with his solitary decorum.The gradual acceptance of their feelings for one another is well constructed although like at least one other commentator I felt the use of some fractured chronology was ambiguous and unsatisfactorily edited.There is the eventual, inevitable tragedy, punctuated with some (mostly wry) comedy along the way but some sense of uncertainty at the end. Whatever else it may be, it features two very moving performances that are deserving of any awards the film receives.
mensch-2
Lotte Verbeek and Stephen Rea, two highly accomplished actors, take on this thoughtful two- hander from Polish-Dutch débutant Urszula Antoniak about loneliness and the difficulty of human connection.Verbeek plays an unnamed Dutch woman who finds herself in Ireland after the end of her marriage and, having opted for an itinerant life free from life's trappings, ends up working on the isolated estate of recent widower Martin (Rea). They strike up an agreement: she will work for food on condition that neither exchanges any personal information about the other. The deal works for a while, but inevitably resistances crumble and the pair form a strong and, for the audience, steadily intriguing bond. Their personal as well as cultural differences clash and then mesh, leading to a co-dependency allegorical to most 'normal' relationships. Antoniak clearly has a good eye, and her performers give their all, but as the film's central premise – a Dutch girl wandering into the Galway countryside – is never explained (beyond the financial needs of a Dutch-Irish co-production), the result is perplexing rather than engaging. While Antoniak's restraint is admirable, from a dramaturgical perspective we are left to scratch our heads while indulging in shots of beautiful countryside. The result is impressive but curiously forgettable, and feels like the idea for a short stretched out into a feature-length film (albeit one that cleaned up at the Locarno Film Festival). We are certainly pulled into the head of the main character, but as her puzzlement and anomie for the world increases so does ours for the film, so any chance of redemption (or explanation) is not just missing, it's redundant. Antoniak is one to watch, but whether one could say the same for the film is not so much a question of quality but one of taste.
AD
