At the very beginning of the year, the first Latvian film appears on the cinema screens, but this work is not only notable for that – the second feature film by director Elza Gauja Postcard from Rome, at first glance, even a slightly comical, but later increasingly painful story about how the life and love of two postmen, Alvina and Ernest, begin to be gnawed by Alzheimer’s disease, which gradually destroys Alvina’s memory.
Out of habit outlining the context, I want to remind you that this young director enters the Latvian cinema landscape very consistently and persistently, proving new qualities with each new work. It might not even be worth mentioning that Elsa Gauja appeared on the screen as Elsa Feldmane in director Andras Gauja’s debut feature film Senior Year (2014), one of the students in Inga Alsiņa’s heroine’s class, but the actress’s next work is the rebellious musician Emma in Nothing will stop us (2019) – already earned Kristapa the Great nomination. However – or luckily – Elza, already Gauja at that time, calmly got through the yellow media’s passionate interest in the “director’s wife” and felt her directorial calling, which she marked already with the studio films in her master’s degree in film direction: the ironically witty and unusual in form Curfew (2021) and a black and white documentary short Professor and Gena (2021), which was nominated To the great Kristaps as one of the five best student films.
Elsa Gauja’s first full-length documentary film was made in parallel with her studies Meanwhile in Lucavsala (2022), which won the National Film Award for Best Debut, and the first feature film Mom is still smiling (2022), for which Great Kristaps also gave his share of attention.
Postcard from Rome so, without much pause, there is the next work in this series (with four nominations To the great Kristaps), and all these seemingly manic statistics are lined up here for one reason – to emphasize that Elza Gauja is a purposeful, fast and effective working person, who also succeeds, and the activity of such a person is worth following, if only because there is no threat of unpleasantness surprises.
Look into the eyes
However, pleasant surprises happen more often, and among those – albeit with some reservations – I include the film Postcard from Rome. First of all, the skill of the director and also the co-author of the scripts of her two feature films is amazing to lure the viewer into serious thoughts about the most difficult topics with light ease and, most importantly, not to leave the viewer there, in that heaviness, but just as easily to pull them out again – if only with the catharsis of the finale, which for a more sensitive viewer On a postcard will almost certainly mean heartfelt mourning. However, here is also the first disclaimer – for the second time in Elsa Gauja’s film, I have objections to the rather artificially pasted “special vignette” of the finale, which takes away the power of the previous shot, the true and very capacious finale of the film. In the first film, it was a portrait of a smiling mother parade, which could easily not follow the tiny figures of three sisters on the shore of a great sea; the second also has a similar vignette, see for yourself.
Second, acting. The fact that Indra Burkovska just now, when she has happily endured the duty of playing quite similar sexy beauties, is experiencing a new, perhaps even more powerful “star time” of the movie actress, was already convinced by her portrayal of Jūrnieks in the feature film Dace Puce Better (2021), and Alvīne is also a deeply and touchingly created character with very laconic means. But the fact that Jānis Jarāns is also able to refrain from the obligation to constantly crack jokes and play a sad and even tragic character throughout the entire feature film is again a pleasant surprise.
Here is also the second caveat – I would have liked a little more equal distribution of screen time for close-ups of both characters and opportunities to look into their eyes; there are much more close-ups of Ernest in the film – is it because he is considered more adequate and therefore more capable of experiences? However, Alvine’s understanding and misunderstanding of what is happening is just as jarring, as evidenced by the wonderful close-up in the bath.
Until it’s too late
It’s funny and perhaps illogical that in the context of this film, some atavisms of 20th century thinking come to mind, for which Alvīne and Ernests are perhaps too young, and after all, we will soon be a whole quarter of a century away from the previous one. And yet – the small private house of both of them must have been built in the middle of the 20th century, when there were no high-rise buildings around, and since then it seems that both the interior of the house and the basic essence of the relationship between the two characters, which in fact only exacerbates the problems today, have been preserved – their principle seems to be ” don’t talk about what’s important”. Therefore, when approaching a serious problem, Ernest just looks and is silent, but Alvina says in every risky situation: “What, you are funny?” That’s how the swelling black cloud is desperately hidden under the carpet every time, until it emerges in an anecdote – Ernest’s brave determination to tell Alvina himself about the harsh decision of the postmistress – so, perhaps, to speak out the difficult situation comprehensively and openly – ends with discouraged drinking in the company of an old friend and drunken mumbling at night : “You don’t have to go to work tomorrow!”
Thank God, I don’t know if talking clearly at the first suspicion helps Alzheimer’s patients in any way – maybe they ignore it, like we all ignore what we don’t want to hear and understand. But one of the strongest after-feelings left by the film Postcard from Rome, is – speak! Talk to your loved ones about everything important and unimportant, talk all the time, because at one point it really can be too late!
2024-01-12 08:04:15
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