POSSIBLE WORLD CANADIAN FILM FESTIVAL: Some films have such a delicate and odd mystique that they’re almost impossible to deal with in a short review without in some way feeling that you’ve sold their worth way short. The pleasures of Modra don’t have much to do with the conventions of plot and action. Instead they have much to do with tiny human moments that say a lot about how our emotions can be touched by a place, or a kind word from a stranger or a chance encounter with a distant relative"¦ a reminder that we have connections, no matter how alone we may think we are.
Family, alienation, and romantic heartache are the story roots of Modra. It’s a really fine and sweet-natured, ultra-low budget low-key drama about Canadian teens on holiday in Eastern Europe. Still, it’s a not a film where the melodramatic core in this material ever really takes hold in any conventional way. This certainly has a lot to do with the do-it-yourself way that writer-director Ingrid Venniger works; shot in a hand-held, 'you are there’ style on real locations (as opposed to sets) with much use of natural source light, Modra has a cast of mostly non-actors (including townsfolk and many of Venniger’s relatives). Out of this approach Venniger gets a sense of vitality and lived experience that’s quite seductive and rich; no one here pretends exactly, they just are.
In her last film, Only (Canada, 2008), she cast her son, Jacob, as the star. Here she has her daughter, Hallie Switzer, a non-professional play the lead, Lina, who, as the movie opens, has just been dropped by her boyfriend as she prepares to leave Toronto for a trip to Slovakia to visit her aunties and uncles in a tiny town called Modra. On an impulse she invites a boy-pal called Leco (Alexander Gammal). So off they go, he thinking the trip is sort of travelogue foreplay and she believing it’s a sex free zone of shared experience and familiar comfort.
Out of this situation confusions and perhaps not unfair expectations give rise to some nasty confrontations. What’s interesting is that Venniger captures just how unreasonable people can be, in ways that are understandable but at the same time very unattractive. When Leco finally unleashes his frustration he’s scarily hurt by Lena’s indifference to his situation. Venniger doesn’t sugar coat it, the way most moviemakers would, with sentiment and lots of pseudo-therapy talk. The effect is bracing, and so authentic it’s painful.
To describe Switzer as a 'natural’ doesn’t do justice to the movie or the performance. It’s a lovely turn that has an improvised feel, but without the sense of indulgence or shapelessness that that description often implies. Or to put it another way, Switzer doesn’t seem like a movie character at all; this isn’t some movie-idealised version of adolescence"¦ this seems, well, real.
Still, given the movie’s slim plot Lina gets to work through a set of set situations that are classic teen movie story/character tropes: she’s moody, disingenuous, mean-spirited, emotionally lost, and unduly harsh on herself and others.
That said, it’s not a film full of emotional fireworks or high peaks; it’s actually rather quiet, even subdued. Aside from one or two brief moments of tough-talk the movie itself becomes like its teenage characters: deep with feeling but reticent. The kids don’t talk much, but their every glance, gesture and uncertain move says a whole lot. What you remember most are the shots of the town, the lived-in characters of the villagers and their open looks and their warmth and the way Veninger shoots the sunlight as it strokes a hillside in the late afternoon. These images and feelings connect with Lena and Leco; you get the feeling they’ll take it all home and be better for it.
