BITTERSWEET

BITTERSWEET

Travis (Peter Halpin) awakes in his unkempt apartment and struggles to find the motivation to leave the place, his narration hinting that he's felt this way ever since his fiancée Lorena (Joe Foskett) walked out of his "uneventful life".

Finally, Travis musters the energy to dress and makes his way to an art gallery for a conversation with acquaintance Ralph (Andrew Cullum) contemplating the nature of death and all it brings with it. It turns out Travis is a film critic, and Ralph is being savage about one of his latest reviews.

Perhaps Travis will have more success with his own script, "The Murderer Waits For Darkness" - if he ever finishes it. Alas, whenever he gets to sit in front of his laptop to write, he's given to musing over his lost love and how life is an inassessible art form of it's own.

Travis takes off to Norfolk to stay in an Inn where he plans to take in the tranquil fresh air and finish his script - about "the impossibility of true understanding" - in peace. Trouble is, it's a trip that he'd originally planned with Lorena and once he arrives there alone he cannot focus on the task at hand.

He takes a stroll along the beach to clear his head of his ponderings on all things of an existential nature. Meanwhile, a shady group of sharp-dressed individuals enter his room in his absence, taking particular interest in his work and his sole photograph of Lorena ...

Difficult to synopsise, Alex Bakshaev's 2008 short film BITTERSWEET is dreamlike and surreal in nature, telling it's story in a vaguely linear fashion as it skirts around the facts and instead poses questions about art, mortality and morality.

Performances are adequate throughout but it's not really important that at times they seem stagy and wooden. This is, after all, DIY filmmaking on a miniscule budget. What's more impressive is that Bakshaev is someone who is more concerned with exploring themes such as how morals can be interpreted through art and how fiction can never fully be separated from fact.

Bakshaev investigates these concepts by way of stylish lighting and use of colour, imaginative camera angles and lengthy passages of contemplative solitude. It's hardly surprising that Bakshaev counts Bertolucci and Godard among his influences.

Aesthetically, BITTERSWEET transcends it's meagre origins and frequently looks stunning - particularly in the latter moments. Kemal Yildirim's photography adds gravitas to the already unsettlingly otherworldly situations, while Alexander "Fle" Zhemchuzhnikov's score is simple, subtle and strangely effective.

Timeless locations such as the beach lend a Rollinesque mysticism to proceedings at times, while the disjointed script and metaphysical leanings that hint at violence on occasion recall Bakshaev's other big influence, Jess Franco.

Some of the dialogue is portentous stuff and suffers from actors who unfortunately cannot deliver such gravity-laden material in a convincing manner. Perhaps if the psychological meanderings had been pared back a little and more suggestion had been applied visually, this would've been even more interesting.

As it stands, BITTERSWEET is a good-looking, well-intended short that exhibits plenty of style and promise. More arthouse than grindhouse - more so even than Bakshaev's lengthier NAKED TRIP, reviewed elsewhere on this site - BITTERSWEET may be too free-flowing and pensive for some tastes.

But it's definitely different and Bakshaev should be commended for his refusal to conform to generic exploitation methods in order to get his 25-minute brainchild noticed. He's stayed true to his vision and a lack of compromise such as this should not go by without some degree of applause.

This screener disc presented the film uncut in a nice, bright and clean non-anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer. English 2.0 audio was as clear and well-served as the picture.

A gallery of 99 production stills were also provided on the disc.

Although not commercially available at the moment, it will be interesting to see if BITTERSWEET and NAKED TRIP do find a release - they'd go together really well on a single disc. Rest assured, if and when they get a release, we'll update you.

As Bakshaev noted in my interview with him (again, available in the "Spotlight" section of this site), BITTERSWEET is his baby, "a short film that took 9 months to shoot on and off and another three to edit. Most frustrating of experiences, but I'm pleased with how the film turned out. It's a story about impossibility of communication between people. But it's told in a detached and roundabout manner which brings in many adjacent themes along the way before reaching an ambiguous climax".

Ambiguous and detached it is, but it's also ambitious and well worth a look. I look forward to whatever Bakshaev concerns himself with next.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Directed by Alex Bakshaev
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