TANGERINES
Director: Zara Urushadze
Cast: Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Ncganen
Rating: (PG)
Four stars (out of five)
In a landscape almost void of colour, the brightly coloured fruit provide the only semblance of hope for two Estonians who have refused to leave a war-torn region.
As militant Abkhazians cruise the countryside fighting pro-Georgian militias, two men are on a quest to harvest a crop of tangerines before their village is consumed in the crossfire.
Building fruit boxes in his woodshed, Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) is racing the clock.
His neighbour Margus (Elmo Ncganen) has tangerine trees fit to burst and they do not know how they will get the fruit picked and out of the village before it turns or they get killed.
A small pocket of the battle occurs on their doorstep and after the smoke clears, only two soldiers are left alive.
Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze) is a rough-hewn Chechen mercenary and Niko (Mikheil Meskhi) is a Georgian soldier.
Once they wake up in Ivo's modest house and discover an enemy is sleeping next door, all hell breaks loose.
This is where Tangerines gets really fascinating.
In a game of cat and mouse interspersed with moments of black-comedy brilliance, a peculiar form of humanity emerges where the flatmates start to develop something resembling empathy.
However, the temptation to kill each other never fully dissipates.
Beautifully acted - Ulfsak's performance as a wise old man with a heart of gold is profound - Tangerines is a perfect allegory detailing the absurdity of war.
It's also spot on as finely tuned drama without any extraneous filler.
- Mark Orton
