Suzie Washington

Nice, fairy-tale like (kind of Alice in Wonderland inspired) film about an illegal refugee in Austria. Birgit Doll is fine in her part and meets some strange people along the way before she can leave for Germany. The strangest of them all may be the tourist guide in his painfully yellow suit; when Birgit Doll locks him in in the luggage compartment of the bus, he stays very polite and obliging in saying: "Hallo?".

Yes, nice and hospitable people these Austrians, but the moment they find out that she is illegal in their country, they are maybe not hostile towards her, but anxious and rejecting. Everybody wants to help, if not always for free, but: no passport, no help; no passport, not a complete human being. And when ever having dinner with an Austrian man, do not tell that you are illegal: he will make a mess of his pancake desert.

The film is a great relief from films with more or less the same subject: this film is light comedy and the director has no misplaced masochist feelings towards his own country. If a romantic you probably will be disappointed by the ending, as I was.

Nana is a middle-aged woman, who desperately wants to leave the Soviet Union. She wants to visit her uncle in Los Angeles, and, ostensibly, defect. As the movie opens, she's detained in an Austrian airport, because her passport is forged. Frightened to return to Russia and desperate to get to America, she escapes from the airport and becomes a fugitive. She doesn't speak the language and knows no one, and must use her fierce determination to avoid capture and try to get to her destination.

This is a very interesting film that never drags, but it's not very emotionally involving. It hold Nana at arm's length, which is good in that it never becomes maudlin or melodramatic, but that prevents the audience from emotionally connecting with her. I definitely recommend it, though. It's very good.