While I always understood the cult-like devotion to Eli Roth’s ‘Hostel,’ and I appreciated the director’s acute knowledge of all things horror and the sickeningly real premise, I never fully subscribed to the tawdriness of it all.
It was a film in which even the dirt and grime had a certain polish to it.
And while the film had its merits, it took a film like “13 Tzameti” to make me appreciate just what it was missing.
This is not to say the two films are remotely similar thematically (though there are classism issues that figure very prominently into both). But there are some films that seem to scream out for a reduced budget to give it added authenticity. Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It,” Kevin Smith’s “Clerks,” and Christopher Nolan’s “Following” are examples of how diminished budget actually enhance the final product.
Now, “13 Tzameti” can easily be added to that list.
Taking a cue from the film noir genre, Gela Babluani’s vision of dystrophic economic oppression is one that echoes Daniel Minahan’s “Series 7: The Contenders” with a little bit of “Bloodsport” thrown in for an altogether exhilarating experience.
Sebastien (played by Georges Babluani, the director’s brother) is a young immigrant from Georgia who is eking out a living as a handyman in France.
While working on the staccato roof on one particular client, he overhears a conversation between its residents, Gordon (played by Philippe Passon) and his wife (played by Olga Legrand) about a “get rich quick” scheme to help boost them out of their current economic woes.
When Gordon ODs, Sebastein is left without work, but he does not leave empty handed. He swipes the envelope of which Gordon spoke, the one that was the answer to their misery.
And it is the start of Sebastein’s.
The film begins to spiral beneath the bucolic city streets of France, into a seamy world where the bourgeois bet on the lives of the economic have-nots.
And this is where the grain and grit of the film’s modest budget comes into full effect. The low-lit, cramped, overcrowded rooms in which these “tournaments” take place reek of despair and tension. It keeps everything grounded even when the film veers off into more surreal Kafka-esque territory.
And as atmospheric as the film is, it would be an exercise in violence for the sake of violence if we did not have a strong enough protagonist in which to invest. With Georges’ Sebastein, we can feel the rising tide of dread that quickly envelopes him.
And while the film’s ending may not reach the most satisfying of conclusions, the build-up created by Gela demonstrates that his future is much brighter than any of the characters of which his film focuses.
· A sad end-note is that an Americanzed version of the film is currently in pre-production, which will undoubtedly carry a budget that may effectively erase the grime that besmudges “13 Tzameti” with such power.