13 Tzameti

Grimy, gritty, gut-wrenching–and damn good. A tight little no-budget thriller which starts obliquely, as a poor roofer, screwed out of pay for a job, decides to purloin a letter which promises great fortune for god-knows-what activities. The film locks him into that situation, and then slowly turns the screws (on him, and really on us). The film looks a stark, black-and-white dream, but my favorite thing about it is its resistance to allegorize; the plot has a whiff of the existential, but instead of portentous dialogue director/writer Gela Babluani sticks to stark images and under-played emotions.

I’ve avoided spoilers. But even knowing what was coming I still found it gripping. Put this into my inescapable escapist category: no way out, done with superior style.

4 thoughts on “13 Tzameti

  1. Very, very enjoyable. It opens a little slowly, and I was not thrilled with the final five minutes, but the central core of the film is just superb. The director and the actors handle the mounting tension without histrionics, but by building just the right amount of dread. I couldn’t figure out why the use of black and white film until that central section, when everything — the blood, the sweat (no tears), the smoke, the shadows, the bristle — all play off each other in shades of gray.

  2. watched last night and liked it quite a lot. sunhee liked it a little less than i did. not much to add, except that the protagonist looks like our own peter stokes. i would say though that the film (and peter) has more than just a whiff of the existential.

    a lot of amazing faces in this film, which also work much better in black and white.

  3. hard to see a black and white french film and not think existential. it’s a pavlovian thing.

    funny you should think of comparing the protagonist to someone we all know, arnab, because, half-way through the movie, simon said, “he looks like arnab.” he meant the mouth. simon identifies people through their mouths, not, like most of us, through their eyes. pete, by the way, has blue eyes, so i’m not sure what the heck you’re thinking about ‘nab. anyway, simon is pretty sure that your mouth looks just like this actor’s. when did you last see each other, you two? how come simon remembers your mouth so well?

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