The Shoe

A sandy beach. Late fifties at the seaside border of Lithuania, which also is part
of the Soviet border. One morning three Soviet border patrollers find a shoe in the sand. Somebody has illegally been by the border, the question is who. The three border patrollers are ordered to find the owner of the shoe. Tracks in the sand lead the three men to the local village, Leipaja. But despite thorough military training the task of solving the mystery of the owner
of the shoe seems hard. At the same time the soldiers are increasingly distracted
by the inhabitants of Leipaja and the life they live.
Soon the focus of the story is moved away from the incident with the lost shoe. It becomes instead an excuse to bring the public on a discovery tour. A trip where one is offered the opportunity to meet ordinary people in their everyday life.
The soldiers visit everything from laundry places to kitchens and industries.
This ambition brings into mind the new wave realism of the 1960's. Butthat is not what makes The Shoe to a rare and exceptional film. What elevates The Shoe is more the way that sound and image co-operate. By using long uninterrupted takes and often a static camera,
Pakalnina seeks to widen the frame.
The spectator is confronted with sounds that soon unveil a world beside that which the fi I m allows us to see. The everyday sounds become a kind of music, often with an ironic touch. Sometimes the film is reminiscent of Bresson and Un condamne a mort s'est echappe.
But also the cinematography in The Shoe is different and often grand. Gints Bersin's black and white images are compositions, as perfect as they are poignant. In films, such as Stalkerand Nostalgia, Andrei Tarkovskij framed and made esthetic the decaying and deserted. I n the same way Pakalnina is able to capture
the beauty in the dirty and the depraved. Slowly, beautifully and excruciatingly captivating.
ROBERT LÖFGREN

Premiärstatus
Svensk premiär: Medverkande
Igors Buraks,Vadim Grossmans,Jaan Tätte: Producent
Christoph Meyer-Wiel: Manus
Laila Pakalnina: Foto
Gints Berzins: Musik
Anrijs Krenbergs: Talat språk
Lithuanian