Thessaloniki Dispatch. 2.

Barely having set foot in the town, I was queueing up for tickets. And with reason. The festival is well-attended and there are many sell-outs. In fact, I was unsucessful on two of my first choices for films to see on my first evening - the world premiere of Alexandra Leclère's Les Soeurs fâchées (part of an homage to its star Isabelle Huppert) and a Macedonian film from the Balkan Survey. I was, though, able to get tickets for Kira Muratova's The Piano Tuner (Russia/Ukraine, 2004) and Shane Meadows's Dead Man's Shoes (UK, 2004).

If Kira Muratova made films in America, she would probably work with actors such as William H Macy and Steve Buscemi. Her cinema is filled with quirky characters trying to find their place in contemporary Russia and Ukraine (where she now resides as a recluse). She's been making features since the 1960s, but has really made her mark in the glasnost and post-glasnost years. Her latest feature, The Piano Tuner, is a lesson in human weakness, in people allow their expectations to soar too high, all told through a series of hyper-verbal characters who also seem to suffer a form of attention deficit disorder. The plot revolves around Anna Sergeevna and Lyuba, both widows, and the piano tuner of the title, Andrei, who is divorced. All are struggling to find love and a place in life, but are constantly thwarted by the faith they put in other people - Andrei in his love for Lina, Lyuba in her prospective husbands (who invariably run off with her money) and Anna Sergeevna in Andrei himself.

Muratova's previous film was called Chekhov's Motifs (2001), and if anything, this film is even more Chekhovian, with its musical gatherings, aimless parlor conversation and the exaggerated literary delivery of the actors (Chekhov even gets squeezed into the dialogue). It's also a rather more eccentric film and even funnier too. But a running time of 154 minutes? I could be generous and say that the length is a reinforcement of the verbosity of the characters, but even the stellar performances can't mask the discomfort of the cinema seat piercing through the posterior as the film drags on, an extension of Muratova's well-known disregard for her audience.

No such problems afflicted Shane Meadow's Dead Man's Shoes, an original take on the exploitation revenge flick and an exposé of the dangers of drugs.

The trouble with drugs and violence in cinema is that it invariably detracts from character development and visual storytelling even though a certain cinematic flair is achieved through excessive stylisation. Well, almost invariably, as Dead Man's Shoes does a good job of avoiding the pitfalls inherent in tackling the subjects, and Meadows has crafted a taught thriller that has beautifully painted characters and which captures the English countryside perfectly (not a usual trait of the genre).

Richard, back from the a stint in the army, turns up in his village but is barely recognized. Only when the mysterious semi-stranger starts playing havoc with the lives of a group of happy-go-lucky pill-popping friends do they make the connection to a guilty secret they all share about how they treated Richard's retarded brother. And then the blood bath starts...

Admittedly, I had huge reservations about the direction that this film was taking as I was watching it. But Meadows's grainy video work changes gear in the final section of the film and is skillfully transformed from a crass justification for mindless violence against those who have wronged you into a poignant moral tale on the price of conformity and not speaking out. The superb performances almost are up to the gargantuan task of realizing the emotion ending - but just not quite. And whomping Arvo Part choral music on the score to up the dramatic tension of the denouement seems a bit clichéd against an otherwise fresh soundtrack. Kudos to Meadows (who is self-taught) for making such a disturbing, original and funny film and one that is strong enough to overcome the implausibility of its ending.

Posted by dwhudson at November 22, 2004 6:31 AM