Elvjs & Merilijn

The temperature in the room is high when Elvis has finished his last number. The audience is cheering, wanting more. Marilyn is also a big hit. Just like in the 1950's when it first happened. The difference is that Elvisi'name is actually Nicolaj and he works in a car shop in a suburb of Sofia, Bulgaria. Marilyn's name is Ileana and she lives in Bucharest, Rumania. The concert they performed
in was a look-alike contest. They both win and get to share the first prize, performing on the Italian riviera.
N icolaj leaves his heavy, grey everyday life, and Ileana her job at the garbage dump and her manic-depressive mother. On the road to Italy they are stopped by
a customs administrator and are forced
to continue the trip; both a physical one by hitch-hiking. They begin a iongtrip through an Eastern Europe at twilight,
and an inner psychic, where rose-coloured dreams are soon broken down and were the hope of the good life becomes disillusionment.
Elvjs & Merilijn is a film about contemporary Europe. A Europe that still bears the traces of the Soviet dictatorial oppression and the massacres of the war in the Balkan. But also a Europe where the bor-
ders of the nation states become more blurred and where identity and belonging are unclear. Here we find Elvjs and Merlijn. Two lost people who embody the naive dream of a better life beyond the boredom and the ennui.
The film is very clear in the symbolic language that it uses. Environments and characters are characteristic and slightly over-exaggerated. The misery is literally gray: garbage dumps, sink, neighbours whose quarreling is heard through the walls, unjust employers and manicdepressive mothers who want to die.
The dream is bleached, colourful, perfumed and glittering. Even if the story is painted with wide brushes it never becomes a caricature. It is, in all its expressions balanced and enjoyable. The imagery is expressive without being overly stylic or esthetic. The film is scored with precision. It is a whole story, well-done and effectively told.
BJÖRN HESSLE

Premiärstatus
Skandinavisk premiär: Medverkande
Edyta Olszowka,Goran Navojec,Giorgio Faletti: Producent
Enzo Porcelli: Manus
Armando Manno: Foto
Renato Tafuri: Musik
Pivio&Aldo de Scalzi: Talat språk
Italian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, Serb-Croatian, Fr