BuzzFlash Reviews

December 30, 2005

Vodka Lemon (DVD, 2003)
Director: Hiner Saleem

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

Okay, we'll tell you right off the bat, if you don't like quirky foreign films that take place in beautifully bleak, barren environments, then don't buy "Vodka Lemon." But, for us, we selected it as a premium because it is a whirlwind of droll humor, hardship, loss, love, and surrealism.

How can you describe two people playing a piano that suddenly starts gliding down an icy road in the middle of nowhere -- or a vodka lemon stand that pops up in the middle of a frozen wonderland? (The latter provides the location for one of the film's most memorable exchanges. "Why do they call it vodka lemon when it tastes like almonds," one of the customers asks the hapless saleswoman in the bitter cold. "Because this is Armenia," she responds.)

And Armenia it is, a desolate, economically impoverished post-Soviet mountainous town, where jobs are as precious as sunlight. The story is ostensibly about a widower devoted to visiting the grave of his wife in a snow-filled cemetery. Eventually, he is smitten by a widow who regularly comes to remember her husband.

But it is really a story about an isolated part of the world that has been forgotten in the global economy and how people must make relationships work amidst the most bitter natural hardships. Filmed in Kurdish, the homes are so spartan and the traditions so old-world, it is waggishly exotic.

The Boston Globe described "Vodka Lemon" as "frostbitten Fellini." That's about right for a film that "opens with a decrepit old musician being towed along a snow-clogged road in his hospital bed so he can play at a funeral."

"Vodka Lemon" continues BuzzFlash's efforts to offer our readers a variety of foreign films that offer insights into the world beyond Crawford, Texas. To the patient viewer, "Vodka Lemon" yields many delights and rewards, a totally original film by the imaginative and inspired Hiner Saleem.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS