Vancouver 09: WILL NOT STOP THERE Review
[Our thanks to Andrew David Long for the following review from the Vancouver International Film Festival. Come back to Toronto, Andrew. We miss you.]
What was the last film you saw in which a Gypsy porn star helped you to understand a complicated romance between a Croatian ex-sniper and a booze-soaked Serbian prostitute? Vinko Bresan (Witnesses, How the War Started on My Island) took the International Critics Prize from this year's edition of Karlovy Vary with Will Not Stop There, a film that is tense, sexy, funny, and engaging for pretty much all of its 112 minutes. The rhythm is quick, the actors embrace ridiculousness in one breath and violence in the next, and best of all, the story unfolds in such a way that you have lots of questions before you start learning the answers (and when those answers start coming, you're going to have a few more questions.)
It's a complicated tale. The story opens with ex-sniper Martin (Ivan Herceg, doing a great job of playing his cards close to his chest) setting out to locate and acquire a Serbian woman he recognizes from his past. The ill will left behind from the Serbo-Croatian conflict doesn't help smooth his path to Desa (Nada Sargin) but he manages to enlist the help of an overly endowed Gypsy (Predrag Vusuvic, nailing most of the film's comic moments, among other things) who once starred in a porn film with her. The price demanded for Desa is substantial, but Martin finds a way to make the money quickly - the kind of quickly that is bound to have repercussions later on. His motivation for the whole escapade remains infuriatingly out of reach for some time, but it sets the stage not only to eventually reveal his motives, but for Desa to begin an entirely different life - an awkward and remarkable transformation pulled off with smoothness to spare by Sargin. Bresan does a wonderful job of balancing the time spent developing story with opportunities to experience the people within the tale in different circumstances, and it leads to an empathy for the characters that many exercises in twist-and-turn film-making lack.
Making a living mostly as a private detective, Martin now spends as much time staring through a still camera lens as he once did staring through his rifle scope. Franjo Mogus's lively cinematography makes great use of both surrogates for the motion picture camera, and what we learn as we look through each in turn fuels the tension.
Scored with pulsing instrumental rock, classical tracks, traditional music, and a great deal of Vusovic's nasal humming, even the soundtrack constantly suggests to you that no-one is on very familiar ground. I'm happy to say it's true; so if Will Not Stop There stops anywhere near you, catch it.
Review by Andrew David Long
What was the last film you saw in which a Gypsy porn star helped you to understand a complicated romance between a Croatian ex-sniper and a booze-soaked Serbian prostitute? Vinko Bresan (Witnesses, How the War Started on My Island) took the International Critics Prize from this year's edition of Karlovy Vary with Will Not Stop There, a film that is tense, sexy, funny, and engaging for pretty much all of its 112 minutes. The rhythm is quick, the actors embrace ridiculousness in one breath and violence in the next, and best of all, the story unfolds in such a way that you have lots of questions before you start learning the answers (and when those answers start coming, you're going to have a few more questions.)
It's a complicated tale. The story opens with ex-sniper Martin (Ivan Herceg, doing a great job of playing his cards close to his chest) setting out to locate and acquire a Serbian woman he recognizes from his past. The ill will left behind from the Serbo-Croatian conflict doesn't help smooth his path to Desa (Nada Sargin) but he manages to enlist the help of an overly endowed Gypsy (Predrag Vusuvic, nailing most of the film's comic moments, among other things) who once starred in a porn film with her. The price demanded for Desa is substantial, but Martin finds a way to make the money quickly - the kind of quickly that is bound to have repercussions later on. His motivation for the whole escapade remains infuriatingly out of reach for some time, but it sets the stage not only to eventually reveal his motives, but for Desa to begin an entirely different life - an awkward and remarkable transformation pulled off with smoothness to spare by Sargin. Bresan does a wonderful job of balancing the time spent developing story with opportunities to experience the people within the tale in different circumstances, and it leads to an empathy for the characters that many exercises in twist-and-turn film-making lack.
Making a living mostly as a private detective, Martin now spends as much time staring through a still camera lens as he once did staring through his rifle scope. Franjo Mogus's lively cinematography makes great use of both surrogates for the motion picture camera, and what we learn as we look through each in turn fuels the tension.
Scored with pulsing instrumental rock, classical tracks, traditional music, and a great deal of Vusovic's nasal humming, even the soundtrack constantly suggests to you that no-one is on very familiar ground. I'm happy to say it's true; so if Will Not Stop There stops anywhere near you, catch it.
Review by Andrew David Long
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