The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
Features  |  Reviews
FIND MOVIES
Find a Movie
Movie List
Loading ...
or
Find Theaters and Movie Times
or
Search Movies

Review: Absurdistan

A ripe, magic-realism-lite tale of life
By GERALD PEARY  |  March 4, 2009
2.5 2.5 Stars


VIDEO: The trailer for Absurdistan

Delicatessen sort of meets Borat in Veit Helmer's visually ripe, magic-realism-lite tale of life in a mythical Eastern European country that time forgot after the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc.

Temelko (Maximilian Mauff) and Aya (Kristýna Malérová) are childhood sweethearts, but their lovy-dovy relationship is disrupted when the ladies of Absurdistan, who include the now-teenage Aya, go on a sex strike. They're peeved because the men have been too lazy to repair a municipal water pipe, and that's left the mini-country as parched as a desert.

Helmer's film is nice to look at, with an unusual palette of lush, saturated colors, but the story, amid a barrage of sight gags, is more thin than absurd.

Related: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Review: Katyn, Gesellschaft Zur Emanzipation Des Samples | Circulations, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Communism, ABSURDISTAN, ABSURDISTAN
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
Comments

ARTICLES BY GERALD PEARY
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE  |  November 11, 2009
    “Bill” Kunstler was the flamboyant, contentious, proudly revolutionary lawyer for the Chicago Eight, a handsome man with an unruly mane of black-and-white that was as impressive and iconic as the head of hair on Susan Sontag.
  •   REVIEW: THE HORSE BOY  |  November 04, 2009
    Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff seem the best of parents and yet they’re worn down by their four-year-old autistic son, Rowan, with his four-hour tantrums, his rejection of toilet training, his inability to answer to his name.
  •   REVIEW: EARTH DAYS  |  October 07, 2009
    Those who worry that the eco-movement seems incapable of getting beyond its white upper-middle-class base will be disturbed anew by Robert Stone’s Earth Days , where every talking head is a well-bred Caucasian.
  •   REYKJAVIK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2009  |  September 29, 2009
    How would the Reykjavik International Film Festival, which I was attending, September 17 to 27, be affected by the horrid downturn?
  •   REVIEW: AMREEKA  |  September 23, 2009
    In the finely sketched beginning chapters of Arab-American writer/director Cherien Dabis's feature debut, we share the frustrating, claustrophobic life of our heroine, Munah Farah.

 See all articles by: GERALD PEARY

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2009 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group