Solitaire

It's been twenty-five years since AI left town without a word. He left his best friend Burt and Maggie, the girl he was going to marry. Now, twenty-five years later, Burt receives a postcard where AI says he is coming to town on Christmas Eve. The three of them are reunified, steal a Christmas tree, get drunk and fight with the sons of their old friends. When the morning of Christmas Day arrives everything is as before, yet nothing is the same. Solitaire is a story about love and rage, dreams of the future and friendship let down.

Comment:
It is something of a tabu in film to place three characters in a room and just let them talk throughout the film. In order to avoid such things many directors break up almost any tight scene of settlement, drag the cameras out into the streets and squares for that same dialogue, and feel satisfied and pleased about having created pictures.
A few years ago, when Francis Damberger saw Louis Malle's My Dinner with Andre, in which two people sit and discuss art and life, he received the idea for Solitaire. And as follows the description of setting and story line is very simple.
The place is Maggie's bar in a small town
somewhere in Canada, where Burt and Maggie, a bit past middle-age, are having dinner on Christmas Eve. Twenty-five years ago they were three. At that time AI, the hero of the town, was there. Since AI disappeared out into life and adventure, the other two have remained, thinking about possible winnings in bingo and getting more and more closed in despite the fact that the door is open.
Just like the classic vagabonds Vladimir and Estragon, they are waiting for a Godot. The difference is that Al actually shows up; dynamic, seductive and false.
Francis Damberger wrote the script directly for film, but he takes a lot from the theatre. The Cafe is simply called Cafe, everything takes place in a stage setting and it all takes place in a single night.
The scope of Solitaire is neither that of Noren nor Beckett, but more of a straight everyday drama with a comic pungency. It is about realizing that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence, to be able to forgive even if it costs - and about the art of walking out through an open door.
It is so simple that we almost always need a magnifying glass to understand it.
Monica Ohlson

Medverkande
Paul Coeur, Valérie Pearson: Producent
Lars Lehmann: Manus
Francis Damberger: Foto
Peter Wunstorf: Musik
Michael Becker: Talat språk
English