Moscow Times, Russia
March 4 2005
Bittersweet Cocktail
Desolate Armenian landscapes provide the backdrop for a touching love
story in “Vodka Lemon,” the latest film by Kurdish director Hiner
Saleem.
By Tom Birchenough
Published: March 4, 2005
Viewers expecting to enjoy the luscious landscapes of the Caucasus in
Hiner Saleem’s “Vodka Lemon” will be disappointed. However, the new
film (shot partly in Russian) from the Kurdish director, long based
in Paris, creates some unforgettable visual moments, centered on the
bleak winter landscape of a remote Armenian village. And there’s much
to relish in the film’s sense of place, as well as in its main
characters.
The film’s central location, which captures the sheer remoteness, and
the timelessness, of a certain kind of post-Soviet desolation, is the
village cemetery. Saleem’s opening scene is impressive, mixing
elements of surreal comedy with a sense of reality that has led
critics to compare “Vodka Lemon” to the films of Georgian director
Otar Iosseliani (who is also based in Paris, where he has been for
more than two decades).
In the opening scene, a funeral is underway, and a bedridden old man
wishes to attend it. This poses no problem, however, as the other
mourners haul him to the cemetery on his bed, which is hitched behind
a truck. Once he gets there, he removes his false teeth and
accompanies the musicians on his duduk, a traditional Armenian
instrument, as they play their parting tribute. The periodic
appearance throughout the film of a lone horseman galloping through
the village — for no explained reason — is another surreal visual
touch of which Iosseliani would surely be proud.
In the film’s main development, however, the cemetery becomes the
scene for a more subtle, less extravagant interaction between the two
main characters. Hamo (Romik Avinian), who comes there regularly to
visit the grave of his late wife, meets Nina (Lala Sarkissian), who
pays similar respect to her deceased husband. Moving between the
tombstones, whose engraved faces carry their own eloquent messages,
they gradually interact, bonding further as they travel home on a
run-down bus.
This marks the start of an affecting relationship, which recalls
Saleem’s first film “Vive la mariee … et la liberation du
Kurdistan.” In that 1997 film, a Parisian Kurd bows to pressure from
his family to choose a mail-order bride from home, only to discover
that his order has been mixed up. He receives the wrong bride, but
they cope with the consequences in a very human way.
In “Vodka Lemon” there is a similar balance between comedy and
compassion. Hamo expects his three sons to support him in his old
age, but to no avail. One has stayed in the village, but he is an
unemployed drunk, and the support, if anything, goes in the opposite
direction; the second is far away in Central Asia; and the third is
in France, which motivates the film’s rare excursions to an urban
environment. In these scenes, Hamo goes to Yerevan hoping to receive
a cash remittance from his son. Ultimately, however, his missions end
in vain.
Meanwhile, Nina is working at the roadside bar that gives the film
its title. Although it is the place where locals congregate (for lack
of anywhere else to go), business is bad and closure is very much on
the horizon. The villagers only survive by selling whatever
possessions they have left — including, in a memorable final scene
with the two leads, a piano that they struggle to move to the
roadside, only to change their minds in the episode’s poignant
conclusion.
In the hands of another director, “Vodka Lemon” could have emphasized
social commentary. Saleem, however, avoids that direction, though
there are moments that reflect the difficult circumstances of
everyday life. “Before the Russians left we didn’t have our freedom,
but we had everything else,” says one character succinctly, referring
to the post-Soviet shortages of water and electricity, as well as
their spiraling cost.
The Armenian element in the film is dominant — certainly in terms of
casting — although its financing came mainly from France,
Switzerland and Italy. This international support has led to
international recognition: “Vodka Lemon” was Armenia’s nomination
last year for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, and it was screened in a
supporting program at the 2003 Venice Film Festival.
The European contribution is most evident on the technical front,
especially in Christophe Pollock’s cinematography, which beautifully
captures both the environment and the individuals who eke out their
existence within it. The score by Michel Korb and Roustam Sadoyan is
no less evocative.
Saleem’s major achievement in “Vodka Lemon” is that he creates and
controls an extremely sensitive emotional narrative out of the
bleakest subject matter. It makes his newest project, titled
“Kilometer Zero,” seem all the more intriguing — the director was
set to return to his native Kurdistan to film a similarly human
story, in what his producers touted as the first feature film to be
shot in Iraq after the U.S.-led
invasion. However, circumstances appear to have delayed the project.
“Vodka Lemon” (Vodka-Limon) is playing in Russian at Fitil.