Critics reviews

Critics who've seen galley proofs of the book Fred's working on are evidently whispering that he's some sort of genius, but once we hear passages from it, we realize that Fred's work is as laughably facile as Free Range itself. Stylistically, I'd love to see the homage to New Hollywood-era classics others are seeing, but for me, umpteen minutes of Fred and his girl on a carnival ride while Cat Stevens's "Peace Train" drones on and on and on just doesn't count.

Veiko Õunpuu's Free Range, an aesthetically marvelous (shot on 16mm) film that is undermined by the director's ironic, po-mo instincts and structural clumsiness, contains a very different—but also beautiful—approach to recording the human form. A Minnie and Moskowitz poster on a character's bedroom wall invited a comparison to John Cassavetes, who Õunpuu shares one (and only one) quality with: the choreography of human bodies.

The film is beautifully shot on 16mm in luscious colours, with a 1970s soundtrack that beguiles and taunts with its nostalgic evocations of summer freedom. The technical artistry of this tapestry of visual and literary quotations (from Godard to Brecht and Bergman) sings, in searching counterpoint to Fred's repulsed disengagement.

If the author of The Temptation of St. Tony were about to do an absurdist, Dadaistic take on life over Estonia, we'd all be there to watch. But if besides that, he turns the tale into a dark comedy dressed as a 60's "summer of love" affirming film... then the oxymoron works perfectly and what we get is an absolute masterpiece of a film. Õunpuu's film is, in my very personal view, the best film on Berlinale so far.