OVP: Tangerines (2014)

Film: Tangerines (2014)
Stars: Lembit Ulfsak, Giorgi Nakashidze, Elmo Nuganen, Mikheil Meskshi
Director: Zaza Urushadze
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Film-Estonia)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

A few years back, the Foreign Film Oscar race was upended when the Academy realized that it was sacrificing too many great films in its process, frequently picking banal and vanilla style films like, say, Babette's Feast while complicated work like 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days got left on the ground.  As a result, the Foreign film race has actually been one of the most fascinating ones in recent years, with complicated and controversial films like Dogtooth and The Great Beauty showing up in the field.  This is why I was a bit surprised while watching Estonia's first nominated film, Tangerines, this past week on Tuesday (not to be confused with the iPhone-shot film about a prostitute that comes out later this year), as it is a film that feels more at-home in the Oscars of the 1980's.  It's about finding the good in all people regardless of their nationality, and takes place largely in a male-dominated society torn apart by war.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Ivo (Ulfsak) a poor farmer from Estonia living in war-torn Abkhazia, trying to get in a tangerine crop with his friend Margus (Nuganen).  The two encounter a pair of Chechen soldiers who try to intimidate Ivo but are unsuccessful, and they leave him alone.  Later in the opening, the Chechen soldiers get into a fight with three Georgian soldiers, whom they are fighting against, and only one from each side live: the Chechen Ahmed (Nakashidze) and Niko (Meskhi).  They are both severely injured and Ivo cares for both of them, watching as their hatred for each other blossoms into respect and then love.  By the end of the film, as can be expected, they are brothers-in-arms as Russian soldiers try to mistakenly kill Ahmed (assuming he is Georgian), and Niko saving his life, all-the-while sacrificing his own in the process when a downed soldier kills him.  The film ends with the enigmatic Ivo burying Niko near his son, who died early in the war (which is why he is unable to spend time with his children-too many memories) and Ahmed leaves having a different understanding for war and country.

The film in some ways is relevant because we still have wars like this.  We have not evolved enough to realize the futility and pointlessness of prejudice, and how ridiculously stupid it is to end life, which is already too short as it is, with violence and premature death.  So in that way I get why films like this are still being made, but on the other hand all artistic evidence already exists to prove this movie redundant.  My enemy is my brother has been an artistic motif in film since at least All Quiet on the Western Front, and in literature much longer than that.  There is no beat in this particular film that feels new or newly urgent for a modern audience.  We don't see a different kind of empathy that, say, juxtaposes Vladimir Putin's disregard for human life, and so this doesn't feel very specific for our times.  Perhaps more direct comparisons to Putin's occupation of Ukraine or the impending threat his government poses to the Baltics would have been a more appropriate way to modernize the film.

As a result, we get a pretty tepid cast of characters-no one in the film really resonates in a major way onscreen, particularly the masculine triangle that centers the film (seriously-we need some estrogen going on in this film where there are literally no female actors).  Ivo, Ahmed, and Niko are so stuck with two-dimensional portrayals you have to assume that the movie could have just called them the Estonian, the Chechen, and the Georgian and we wouldn't really know the difference.  Occasionally Margus, Ivo's friend who questions his actions and seems to be so ancillary I expected him to have more of a part, was interesting in a, "what role does the director think he's serving?" sort of way, but that's giving a lot of leeway to our director.  All-in-all, while this is by no means a bad movie (the only time I leave a film a one-star rating), it's not special or recommendation-worthy in any way, and so I'll only go with one additional star.

Those were my thoughts on this light, swift, and thin movie-what about yours?  Do you feel a different movie should have been Estonia's first shot at the prize?  Or were you in love with the minimalism of the movie?  Share your thoughts in the comments!