ABSURDISTAN
Director: Veit Helmer
Review by Robert Sabetto

Thank God my first time wasn't this complicated.  Temelko (Maximilian Mauff) and Aya (Kristyna Malerova) are two young Turks from a village buried deep in the mountains.  Born on the same day at the same hospital, they are destined to be together.  When they're 14, the stars tell them that it’s time to get it on when Sagittarius meets Virgo—- in, like, four years.  Forbidden to touch until then, they go about their business, waiting for their day to, um, come, while the rest of the town gets it on without them.  What are two horny teens to do?  Suck it up.

The decrepit pipe that brings water to the village is a problem: the water moves increasingly slower and arrives in steadily decreasing amounts.  The men of the village procrastinate about fixing it.  You might, too: the pipe is a pain in the ass to get to, runs along a treacherous path, and many who built it died doing so.  At first, it’s a minor inconvenience.  Time goes by and the pipe gets worse.  When it finally runs dry, the women organize their own collective bargaining unit and go on strike: no sex until the pipe is fixed.  This divides the village into male and female, thrusting Temelko (who just returned from the city to study engineering) and Aya smack in the middle.  Did I mention it’s four years later, and our Zodiacs are set to join in seven days? 

I loved every minute of ABSURDISTAN.  It’s colorful and fun, highly imaginative, very well crafted, and beautifully filmed.  It has the same surreal feel of a Jeunet work (DELICATESSAN, AMELIE), and is just as whimsical.  The story plays out like a (deceptively) simple fable, embellished with literary bits pulled from folklore, burlesque comedies, Shakespeare, and yes, even Rube Goldberg.  Dialogue is sparse, but it’s unnecessary because the action moves the story and the theme is universal.  An unobtrusive narrator helps, too.  Helmer walks a fine line between cynical and sweet, but the latter ultimately prevails.  Thoroughly engaging from start to finish, ABSURDISTAN’S commentaries on love, sex, gender, and society are amusing yet provocative.  This is one film I didn’t want to end.