epff5: Synopses of Films

Fifth European

Psychoanalytic

Film Festival

29 October - 1 November 2009

BAFTA, London W1

Screen Memories from Eastern Europe

Synopses of films

BRIEF ENCOUNTER (Great Britain, 1945)

This is a classic romantic melodrama, written by Noel Coward and one of the first films to be directed by David Lean. It is the story of several encounters between housewife Laura Jesson and doctor Alec Harvey in a cafe at a railway station. Although they are already married, and feel guilty about their relationship, they fall desperately in love and continue to meet every Thursday afternoon.

ELEVATOR (Romania, 2008)

Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, hide away from the world by shutting themselves inside the elevator of an abandoned factory, for what was supposed to be a moment of intimacy. But, when we meet them, they are already trapped inside the lift which has got stuck between two floors and, despite many attempts to get out, they seem unable to do so. As their situation becomes increasingly dramatic, they begin to discover for themselves and to reveal to each other the deep richness of their inner worlds. Rarely have adolescents been portrayed with such insightful and disturbing precision.

Warning: this film is not recommended to spectators with claustrophobic tendencies.

JASMINUM (Poland, 2006)

Jan Jakub Kolski's eleventh film, Jasminum tells a mysterious and magical story, set in a monastery in our times, full of sensuous scents, filled with the special light that love spreads around. Three of the monks living there have a special quality: each of them has his own particular fruity body scent, and the scents have some extraordinary properties... One day a young female art restorer arrives at the monastery with her 5-year-old daughter, and is commissioned to restore the paintings there. The little girl's charm and inquisitive nature brings a great deal of confusion into the monks' so far peaceful lives.... Jan Jakub Kolski said:"Krzysztof Kieślowski once sent me a few friendly words, among them these: 'I value you for your seriousness and sense of humour'. He was the first to notice this duality in which there is no contradiction. A sense of humour and attentiveness. A combination of these two elements can result in an extraordinary film. Those were my calculations when I wrote Jasminum. And, of course, one more calculation, the most important one: to enjoy the smiles of the audience leaving the cinema".

OWN DEATH [SAJÁT HALÁL] (Hungary, 2007)
A man relates his most intimate thoughts as he suffers a near-fatal heart attack and hovers momentarily between life and death. Found footage, first-person voiceover and poetic imagery are juxtaposed in this brilliant adaptation of Péter Nádas’s autobiographical novella, an exploration of the internal processes and perceptions, the personal thoughts and memories of an ordinary person whose experience of pain, fear and acceptance becomes a meditation on mortality and the passage of time (Experimental Film Grand Prize, 2008 Hungarian Film Week). Péter Forgács won the 2007 Erasmus Prize, "awarded to a person or institution which has made an exceptionally important contribution to culture in Europe."

SIMPLE THINGS (Russia, 2007)

Sergei Maslov, a 40-year-old anaesthetist in a state-run hospital in St. Petersburg, has to deal with matters of life and death in his daily course of work. This could be why he never lets any issues in his personal circumstances disturb his seemingly carefree peace of mind. But now life takes a serious turn on him, as he gets into problems with his girlfriend, his daughter runs away from home and his wife declares she is pregnant, although their room in a shabby communal apartment is already too crowded. To add to this, Zhuravlev, Sergei’s private patient, an actor once famous and now forgotten, makes an offer Sergei should better refuse. Or better not? Too many choices for a man for whom it might be best not to think. Shot completely in real settings in St.Petersburg flats, hospitals, pubs and streets, the film features theatre director Sergei Puskepalis’s screen debut as Maslov, and a long-overdue comeback of Leonid Bronevoi, whose Soviet-era fame was based on his brilliant portrayal of Muller, chief of Gestapo, in the black-and-white TV spy series, 17 Moments of Spring. The biggest challenge and ambition for us in all aspects of making Simple Things – casting, costumes, locations, camerawork, editing and sound mixing – was to help the viewers forget they are watching a film, so that they could simply coexist with the characters. To present life as it is – a complex aggregate of simple things.

SOMNAMBUUL (Estonia, 2003)

The shadow of the swastica is leaving Estonia in the autumn 1944, but red flags are already wawing in the capital, Tallinn. Before the war, the Soviet troops had occupied the Baltic countries after a diplomatic betrayal and political pressure. Now they are taking back what they have lost. Tens of thousands of people escape from Estonia, leaving many seashore villages empty. This is the terrifying time when Somnambuul by Sulev Keedus begins, during the genocide when one in five Estonians perished (1939-49). Eetla is a young woman gets off the last boat to Sweden, staggering back to her father´s cottage, a lighthouse keeper and farmer. Separation from the memory of the dead mother and native country was too much for Eetla, who attempts to fight against the fear of losing her psychic balance. Having no peace nor ability to mourn, she recites her fantasies as if trying to get hold of her past in order to survive in the future. In Eetla´s fantasies, the mother comes back and they flee together with the father to Sweden. The desperate and depressed father and Kasper, a doctor war refugee who has treated the mother and now arouses erotic tension in Eetla, listen to her recitation and accusations. The father´s only comfort is ornitology, but the seagulls around him are stuffed and cannot fly to freedom.

A WONDERFUL NIGHT IN sPLIT (Croatia, 2004)

In the dark and deserted streets of the Croatian city of Split's medieval Ghetto, during the final two hours of New Year’s Eve, three separate love stories - not directly involved in the festivities - intertwine with each other. Three couples find themselves near the main Roman Square: a smalltime drug dealer Nick and a widow Maria with her son; a young junkie in a crisis, Maja, and a depressed American sailor Franky and a pair of naive teenagers, Luke and Angela. They all unsuccessfully try to escape their individual extreme situations only to find their lives permanently and irreversibly changed. As we see their stories develop a major concert unfolds before an emotional crowd gathered to usher in the New Year, along with a traditional fireworks display at the stroke of midnight.

A Wonderful Night in Split was nominated for the European Film Academy Discovery Award in 2004 and was voted in 2005 by a survey of 26 film critics as the best Croatian film in the previous five years.