Spout Mavens

13 Tzameti

13 Tzameti

Re: 13 Tzameti

Re: 13 Tzameti

Re: 13 Tzameti

Re: 13 Tzameti

I received the screener for 13 Tzameti in the mail early last week and was able to watch it a few days ago.  Here's my review of sorts:

I'd seen the trailer for this back at the beginning of the year and found it intriguing enough to remember it when it was mentioned on this Spout Maven's group.  I knew the main point of interest, basically a group game of Russian roulette with the contestants forming a ring with each person pointing their gun at the head of the person to their right like a lethal circle jerk.  All of the spectators at this obviously illegal event have put high stakes bets on their contestant.  Sorry if I gave it away, but it's all in the trailer and knowing this would probably only make you want to see it more.

I watched the movie in two parts.  Coincidentally I had to leave my apartment after about a half hour, pretty much right before we really get thrown into this contest that I have described.  However I didn't realize this at the time, and even though I knew what was coming, I was starting to wonder how little of the actual movie was actually devoted to what was pretty much the entire content of the trailer.  Once I got back to the movie, it pretty much jumped right into it, but the first third of the movie was actually pretty boring.  And I'm one who can appreciate a good black and white rural type drama, but this just didn't work.  Nothing special about the dialogue or the photography.  And it seemed like the use of non-diagetic music was often excessive or inappropriate.

Once the lead character finally starts to get involved in this disturbing contest it get a bit more interesting.  The premise was morbidly curious enough to keep my attention, but there were hardly any surprises or anything really original done with it.  Other than the tension of the moment, there isn't really much insight I have into the film now that it's over.

Except...  a quote on the packaging from The Village Voice calls the movie "a brutal metaphor for the global economy".  I'm not sure if I would have thought about it that way without reading it, because if there is a metaphor it's a pretty obvious one.  In fact, I wouldn't even call it a metaphor.  The poor need money desperately enough to get it by any means and the rich are bored with their money to exploit the poor to the most extreme lengths for their entertainment.  I suppose this is why Sébastien (played by George Babluani and who I would assume is related to the director since they share the same surname) was so willing to enter this menacing scenario and continued to play the game.  He was obviously deeply disturbed by the fact that he would be killing people but he needed the money that bad.  I guess you could also say once he was there he didn't have much choice but play or probably be killed himself, but it wasn't easy to relate to him. It seems more like a straightforward example of this rather than a metaphor.  I guess I just see this as such a matter of fact situation of the way the world works that again there wasn't much insight here.

I suppose I could go more in debt about the other characters and what they obviously represented in this “metaphor”, but if you’ve watched it there’s no reason to explain.  The screenwriting techniques are so obvious I didn’t even consider that it would be necessary to explain them.  I’m trying to write a long enough review to be worthy of my receipt of the screener, but really this is one of the simplest movies I’ve seen.  There’s very little to dissect or explain.  It just is what it is in my eyes.

But for a thriller that will play out some darkly curious scenarios, 13 Tzameti both succeeds and suffers from its simplicity.

It also looks like this movie is being remade in Hollywood with the same director.  So *fart* whatever.  I guess this is a situation where I thought they could have actually done more with the premise, so I suppose I might actually be curious as to what happens with it.  I read in a message board Brad Pitt may be involved.  Ooooh.  It may turn out to be the next Fight Club!  Wouldn’t that be exciting!  Or extremely annoying!

rating: 7/10

A Methodical Journey Into The Game

The hardest thing about reviewing 13 Tzameti is not giving it away. The film is a tense Hitchockian film that builds scene by scene. Gela Babluani's choice to film in black and white gives the film a surreal feel as the viewer heads deeper into the game.

The masterstroke is Georges Babluant as Sebastien. Babluant plays the character as weak and vulnerable, with a subtle edge. At times his performance is reminiscent of Buster Keaton, and other times of Harrison Ford. His eyes paint a picture of the tormented soul fighting with himself the entire way. His eyes tell you more about Sebastien's state of mind than his sweat covered shirt.

13 Tzameti does not fill the audience with deep characterization. The viewer is given a glimse of a character in name or number, but no character is given a deep background, including Sebastien. This lack of character does not stop the film from dragging the viewer into the game including the coaches, pressure and competition. The film also doesn't rob the viewer of the betting thrill.

Babluani does not sugarcoat the experience. Where most American directors would fill a film like this with majestic scores, and tense overtures of music; Babluani does not. The most tense scenes in the film are filled with dialogue, or sounds, but no score. It adds to the horror. The pacing is slow and methodical. Every scene has a meaning, and builds to the next scene.

Now the meat of the story. It is a game. It is illegal. It is murder. It is high stakes betting. It is manipulation. It is dehumanization. It is simple. It is brutal. It is fun. It promises riches. It is a moral crisis for the viewer. It is half the film and revealing a word gives it away. It has to be seen to be understood.

The journey of Sebastien before and after is not a journey to Middle Earth. It is a journey that takes place on his face and in his eyes. It is a journey to a black souless place where redemption is not the goal. Any smart viewer should grabe the envelope and take a train to a crossroads to find out. Babluani's film is dark view of humanity and one man. See it a couple of times and don't read other people's mail.

Re: 13 Tzameti

Re: 13 Tzameti

Re: 13 Tzameti

Re. Tzameti - games of extreme luck etc.

Hello,

Enjoyed some of your comments here.

You might want to also check out INTACTO which has a very similar storyline if entirely different set-up - the section in the forest is possibly one of my favorite sequences on film in the past few years.

Re. discussion of the first act - how successfully can one particularly criticise the first act on grounds of failure to elaborate its explicit meaning (it achieves precisely what it sets out to do in terms of structural set-up once analysed retrospectively and lays the groundwork for the stylistic juxtaposition which will pay-off in the second half switch of pace). I do remember when watching the film considering the "set-up" through the roof etc as being less than believable at the precise moment I was taking it in but that just allows this section, thematically, to segue neatly into the following debate on probability and destiny, and gives the first section a separate charm of its own on second viewing.

On the central theme of fatalism:

Exploitation of the poor by the rich taken as a metaphor for global economic interaction seems pat. Isn't it more about the rich having choice and freedom over behaviour and their destiny and the poor having no such choice, internationally and at any level of society - in fact it is privelage which dicates this rather than cash specifically - and privelage/freedom are often accorded to those who are not afraid to steal or take them, as much as they are afforded to the lucky. I think this might more simply describe the background characters who seem inevitably larger than life rather than simple charicatures which would have been an easy mistake for the director to make.

So to what extent is the central character motivated by money rather than his all-consuming interest in exploring his own destiny? I believe the director, aged 19 when he wrote it, may have read and fallen in love with fellow Russian, Mikhail Lermontov's A HERO OF OUR TIME, whose central character, the seductive Girgory Pechorin, while richer and more mercenary, shares so many of the same elements as the lead in Tzameti. Both are divorced from their surroundings and fellow humanity because of their willingness to abandon themselves entirely to the whims of fortune and to embrace consequence.

If you haven't read A HERO OF OUR TIME nor seen INTACTO - I think you might enjoy both.

Alf at arts alliance

Re: 13 Tzameti

Here is the link to my review:

 http://www.spout.com/blogs/moviedodd/archive/2007/08/09/17719.aspx