Likteņdzirnas is a flawed film that manages to capture the spirit of the years shortly following Latvian independence—despite its tendency towards overwrought sentimentality and substandard production values.

Eduks (Ivars Kalniņš) is a college professor caught between the reality of the present and the desire to regain the past. He has inherited a mill. To him the mill holds priceless sentimental value. To his ex-wife and children the mill has only monetary value. He wants to restore the mill to its former glory and live happily ever after in its pastoral setting. Everyone else is pressuring him to sell it and get all that he can while he can. There is no shortage of buyers, including Vincent (Romualds Ancāns), a quasi-Mafiosi who wants to turn the mill into a Roman bath and brothel. Eduks is joined in his struggle to restore the old mill by Agnese (Agnese Zeltiņa) and Beisiks (Artūrs Skrastiņš). Agnese is an old student of his who, in a twist of fate, had lost her eyesight. Beisiks is a young musician wandering from job to job who knows every Latvian folk song, but dresses like a Metallica groupie.

This broad soap opera outline is symbolic of all that was happening in Latvia at the time and, to a point, is continuing in the present day. Shortly after independence, as people reclaimed properties usurped by the Soviets, similar real-life stories were played out all over Latvia. The joy of our regained independence often had to take a back seat to the need to live and the desire to thrive in a capitalist society. This was a society in which traditional Latvian values at times clashed head on with the realties of having to make a buck.

Eduks represents the idealized model of what a Latvian is: strong, stoic and with a lyrical love of the land. He is always willing to do the right thing. Vincent symbolizes the forces of change that were sweeping through the nation. He borders the fine line between a legitimate businessman and an old fashioned crime boss. Beisiks symbolizes the lost youth of the current generation: aimless and fatalistic, proud of his heritage while adopting the mannerisms and language of Western culture, trying to bridge the two into one. Agnese represents the Latvians who have decided to make the best of what they have despite all of the obstacles.

Likteņdzirnas is not a great film, but it is a good one. Director Jānis Streičs starts off slowly, but eventually manages to create a believable story full of lyricism and warmth. However, what really makes the film work is the performances of the actors, primarily of Skrastiņš. Skrastiņš manages to capture the dichotomy of Latvian youth, caught in a mess that was not of their making and persevering with a combination of fatalistic resignation and youthful exuberance and optimism. Kalniņš brings just the right note of soul to Eduks without, as often happens in Latvian films, making him seem overly dramatic and brooding.

This film could have easily have turned into a heavy melodrama, but in the end it manages to tell its story with humor and warmth. It captures the hardships of adjusting to a new world and manages to show the difficulty of reconciling our expectations with the realities of life. There is a bit of these characters in all of us.

(Editor’s note: This review originally appeared on author Andrejs Makwitz’s Web site, The Latvian Film Page, and is republished with permission.)

Three young soldiers discover a woman’s shoe on a sandy beach and chaos breaks out. Sirens go off, officers appear and hurried orders are shouted out. Welcome to Liepaja, Latvia, 1950. The new frontier. A time of paranoid suspicion, absurd reality and good old fashioned Latvian stoicism.

The story of Laila Pakalniņa’s Kurpe (The Shoe) reflects the absurdities of Latvian life in the early days of the Soviet occupation. This was the period in which the sand of Liepāja’s coastline was dredged each night by a tractor, like a conscientious golfer would a sand trap, and the following morning checked for fresh footprints.

When a pair of border guards discovers a woman’s shoe in the sand that wasn’t there the previous night, it could only mean one thing: a saboteur must have landed. It is the only possible explanation.

The commander of the border guards orders them, in classic Soviet fashion, to find the woman to whom the shoe belongs in the most direct manner possible. They are to traverse the city and to see whom the shoe will fit. A bit of Soviet Cochranism: “If the shoe will fit, you must convict.”

What ensues is an absurd tale that reflects the absurdities of Soviet life. Pakalniņa’s direction and cinematography perfectly complements the realities of the time. The film is an “art” film and as such might not appeal to those who are used to more traditional forms. There is very little dialogue and the plot assumes that the viewer understands the backstory. The shot selections often will often have the characters shot in silouethes or as reflections. The cinematography is in high contrast black and white.

However, for what it tries to be it is a nearly perfect film. The pacing and the style perfectly capture the helplessness and pragmatism of Soviet Latvian life. The ability of people to persevere with stoic resignation, all the while never quite submitting to their fate.

Pakalniņa’s background is in experimental and documentary films and it shows in the best possible way in this film. Kurpe resists the temptation to judge the period, but presents it in a straightforward manner allowing the audience to reach their own conclusions. Often films like this tend to be a bit heavy, but Kurpe never crosses the line.

Pakalniņa is greatly helped by the actors’ ability to appear natural. Their understated performances make the film’s absurd tone even more poignant.

In many ways this film shows how to accomplish a lot with a little. According to Pakalniņa, the story and the style were driven by the fact that she could not find the funding for some other projects and in the meantime decided to film a story with what she had available.

(Editor’s note: This review originally appeared on author Andrejs Makwitz’s Web site, The Latvian Film Page, and is republished with permission.)

Director Aigars Grauba’s Baiga vasara (Dangerous Summer) reaches high, but never quite attains its lofty goals. It is technically a great-looking movie with a Dolby soundtrack, but is hampered by a weak script, uneven acting and spotty direction.

Part of the problem is that Grauba is never quite sure which story he wants to tell. On the one hand it is a romantic story about a wartime love triangle between Izolde (Inese Caune), a young Baltic German student caught between the powerful Vilhelms Munters (Uldis Dumpis), the real life Latvian foreign minister, and Roberts (Artūrs Skrastiņš), a powerless but idealistic radio reporter. On the other hand it is the story of the Latvian nation caught between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. If that wasn’t enough, it also adds two subplots. One deals with Munters’ efforts to steal some overseas Latvian funds. The other deals with the role of journalists in a democratic society and the obstacles that they face. All of these are supposed to complement each other, but unfortunately merely get in each others way. The screenplay had five co-authors, seldom a good sign.

Baiga vasara is at its best when it focuses on the journalists. This is mainly due to the performances of Skrastins and, as Roberts’ reporting partner Karlis, Jānis Reinis. They both bring a realism to their roles that takes their characters beyond the mostly two dimensional performances of the other cast members. There is a genuine chemistry between the two. Grauba seems most comfortable when telling the story of what it takes to be a reporter and the obstacles that they have to face. Grauba, who also had a hand at the screenplay, and the other writers—Pauls Bankovskis, Gabis, Jānis Leja and Andrejs Ēķis,—have all, in one way or another, actually worked in broadcasting and are intimately familiar with the subject matter. The first rule of writing is write about what you know and, in this case, it shows on the screen.

Baiga vasara is at its weakest when it tries to tell the story of the Latvian nation. Partly this is due to the performances of the two leading actors, Dumpis as Munters and Uldis Vazdiks as Kārlis Ulmanis. Their acting styles reflect the Social Realism style that was popular in the Soviet Union and the fact their craft was developed mostly on theater stages. Their performances lack the emotional depth needed for film. Their characters come across as two dimensional caricatures. This is something that might have worked on the stage where actors have to reach the cheap seats, but on screen it seems unnatural and forced.

There has been quite a bit of criticism of the historical accuracy of the film and the roles of Munters and Ulmanis. However, it is important to remember that this is a work of fiction and history is always a matter of interpretation. I cannot vouch for the historical accuracy, but from a historical perspective the film’s major weakness is that the historical story simply falls flat and never progresses beyond its two dimensional presentation. I doubt that this was by design. It was due to flawed execution.

The other major problem is that history requires scale. You basically have two cinematic choices when dealing with history. You can either choose to tell it as an epic, for example Lawrence of Arabia, and have a lot of sweeping wide angle shots and a cast of thousands to show the overwhelming obstacles and stakes, or you can choose to shoot it tight, for example The Manchurian Candidate, and concentrate on the emotional and psychological obstacles and stakes. Grauba tried the first approach, settled for the second, but succeeds at neither. Of course, not all of this is Grauba’s fault. This particular story almost demands an epic approach, but that costs money, which Latvian filmmakers simply do not have access to. Then again, scale can be demonstrated in many ways. Grauba, for example, could have used newsreel footage to show the insurmountable odds that the Latvian nation faced. Instead he tries to fake it by shooting tight shots with epic implications.

The only place where this stylistic approach seems to work is in the central plot line of the triangle between Izolde, Roberts and Vilhelms. Izolde is torn between her love for Roberts and Vilhelms’ offer of security and the chance to escape Latvia for Germany just ahead of the rolling Russian tanks. The only weakness in this portion of the film is that there is very little chemistry between Izolde and Roberts, or even Izolde and Vilhelms. Caune is a good and capable actress, but she seems to be in a tug of war between the stylistic choices of the two actors. Skrastiņš with his naturalistic approach and Dumpis with his theatrical emoting place Caune in a tough spot. She tries to respond by adopting the style of whichever character she shares the screen with, but never really makes a connection with either.

Overall, Baiga vasara is not a bad film. Had it concentrated on telling just one of the stories it could have been a great film. It spreads itself too thin and tries to accomplish something which is just slightly beyond its reach, but in doing so it does have its moments of cinematic glory when the screen comes alive with the story of the Latvian people and the hardships that they had to endure during a period of history that seldom is dealt with from a Latvian perspective.

(Editor’s note: This review originally appeared on author Andrejs Makwitz’s Web site, The Latvian Film Page, and is republished with permission.)