Tuvalu

I enjoyed Tuvalu immensely. I found it to be a very touching and heart-warming look into the life of an ordinary man living in an extraordinary world. The story was great. It had elements of suspense, romance, tragedy and quirky humour. The actors also did an excellent job of bringing to life the odd and endearing characters. I also found that the film really succeeded in bringing across a mood with exquisitely bleak scenery and visuals which I found reminiscent of both "City of Lost Children" and "Brazil". Tuvalu is an incredible surrealistic journey through a world full of fantasy and wonder. I highly recommend it.

It's been a couple of years since I saw, but would like to see it again. I remember it being magical. Everything works well in this film: the acting carries the film without dialogue, the color of the film (sepia) gives it a surrealistic, fairy-tale quality. Great story, focusing on saving a family-operated bathouse from evil developers. Many memorable scenes, including fooling the blind father that the place is full of customers. Another example of a film that Hollywood/USA could never make.

I love this movie! It's funny, it gives you material for hours of discussion and it makes you think and dream. my favourite scene is when Eva goes swimming with her pet-fish. Not only that her naked body looks very beautiful in the blue light - what impressed me most was the fact, that the fish believed to be free although it was imprisoned in a bigger vessel. A good film to reflect about your dreams and how to realize the ones that are no pipe dreams.

This is a film that filled me with warmth and appreciation for the cinematic artform. Using tinted black and white film and a suggestion of dialogue, Veit Helmer was able to successfully tell a story in the way they were told within the first 30 years of cinema. It should renew anyone's faith in this medium who thought that Hollywood productions were all that were left to call "entertainment".

Andre is the younger son of a blind man, left to run a delapidated bath house in a fictional European city a few years in the future(?). He not only has to juggle the possible closing of the house by local authorities, keep business going as usual, and keep his Father from finding out the true plight of which they face, but also face his first true love, Eva. All this and an evil brother who wants to see the bath house torn down in way for a new development and you have a formula that has been seen many times over.

However, several elements come into play that make this an outstanding film. One, the film is shot using tinted black and white film, giving the decaying sets a life of their own. Second, Veir opted out of having any "real" dialogue and instead presented a combination of gestures, expressions and universally known words to convey the words. This made way for the kind of acting that was predominate in the first 30 years of film history, and if he had decided to illiminate the dialogue altogether it would have come out the exact same way. Not since the premiere films of Luc Besson, David Lynch or Lars Von Trier can I stress the incredible treasure that has been created.

I hope that many more of you have the chance to see this film.

I had the chance to see this movie in the Porto, Portugal film festival Fantasporto 2000. The story revolves around a decadent public swimming pool, run by a blind old man who's mind still lives in the building's days of glory. It focuses on the people still using it, and on the persons still working there: a woman with a fixation on buttons and one of the old man's sons, who struggles to keep the building alive. The antagonist is the old man's other son who eagerly waits for the destruction of the building so he can build condo's.

I found the concept of making a film without dialogs very interesting. Although people might think this could make the film boring and hard to follow, this doesn't happen at all. Merit goes to the actors, who deliver a very expressive and quality performance, without falling into ridicule, and to the rhythm given to the plot.

Regarding directing and photography, all is presented neatly, but I can't help mentioning the similarities to Emir Kusturica's (namely in the portraying of the 'post-apocalyptic' universe and the nonsense touch of the plot) and to Jeunet & Caro's work (the building and the 'impossible romance' between the main characters is shown very similarly to Delicatessen). Although this impairs a bit the final result, I believe that in the end it is a nice movie which most people will enjoy and be surprised with (specially if they haven't seen any Kusturica or Jeunet & Caro movie).