mbloxham

consistently well-acted and convincing, this understated piece peers into the life of a petty criminal, short on affect, the complications and consequences of whose life ultimately lead to a moment of moral action (as he turns himself in to protect a young accomplice), and to a final moment of feeling. the only art in the film is in drawn-out, and ultimately repetitive frames in which the principal character inhabits a blank formal scene, and, devoid of visible expression, waits. the camera is hand held, to deny Art, and the film is to be viewed in the context of, say, a high school or college class. a sympathetic piece, with, deliberately, too few dimensions.

to the extent that the English title, look at me, captures the actual intent of the film, it possesses in this a focus, and the two actors playing father and daughter play it out exceedingly well. but the remainder of its discernible subject is a theme of bourgeois professional games, and here potential tensions are barely introduced let alone resolved, so that characters remain no more developed, distinguished, than in a soap. this causes the piece to be very firmly one appropriate to television, not the cinema, and it is a commentary on the influence of the former that this film has garnered so many awards.