When I saw that Laurynas Bareiša's follow up to the excellent PILGRIMS was at New Directors New Films I got excited. I was even more intrigued when I realized that it also had been short listed as Lithuanian entry for the Oscars.
The film is very hard to discuss. The film is about two sisters and their families who go to a remote cabin and something happens. What happens at that 36 minute mark is not immediantly clear and the film spends the next hour bouncing through time and replaying some events as we see what happened after in fragmented form. How you react to the film is determined by the pieces that are thrown our way. Because the trip is required to get a fair reaction I can't tell you more regarding details.
I will say that with this second cinematic foray Bareiša has taken a step toward being recognized as a crafter of fine human dramas. The characters are compelling, the situations feel real. There is a sense that for the most part this is happening right before us.
I will also say that I'm not so certain that the fragmentary telling of the tale really works. I say that because the fragmentation implies something greater than what we get. I wish the film had played out chronologically and that what happens happened without the broken narrative. The strength of the directors earlier film was the fact that it played out like life with no grand revelation promised nor given. Here the shift from straight forward to chronological muddies the water needlessly.
That isn't to say it breaks the film. It doesn't. It just makes what would have been a near great film into a solidly good one and that is enought to recommend it when it plays New Directors New Films.
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