We see a girl in a city during some kind of festival is visibly disturbed and upset. She aimlessly walks around, timidly taking in her surroundings, and it becomes clear she is homeless. After 20 minutes with no dialogue, she finds a friend in a transvestite prostitute who has used her makeshift shelter for a 'date'. With one other character introduced we are faced with three people at rock bottom facing thier issues individually and together. This gives us some interesting scenarios but the film doesn't totally work for a couple of reasons.
I liked the look of the black and white imagery although I thought it lacked texture - more could have been made of the light and dark within the pallette - two excellent examples of this in use are Woody Allen's greatest work Manhattan and the Michael Haneke masterpiece White Ribbon. In the final scene there are unexpected splashes of colour, which reminded me of one of my all time favourites Portrait of Jennie.
It goes about it's business fairly quietly which is commendable, however I still felt an awkward hint of self righteousness. It felt like an unsubtle lecture on the plight of immigrants, sexuality and extreme poverty. For instance, she is given a sanitary towel, and she is shown rinsing it to re-use, just to hammer the point home after it was already perfectly clear. There is lots of technical quality on show, and it dealt with many worthy themes, but it could have been more well rounded and balanced.
3 out of 5
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