Modris (Juris Kursietis, 2014): Latvia

Reviewed by Felix Palmqvist, Santa Barbara film festival, 2016, Fiesta Five.

This film did not make a good impression on me at all. It had its moments, but overall I think it was too slow. I am a big fan of drama films, but this drama film had too little drama if I can put it like that. It was really realistic, but not dramatic. It is basically a tough-love story about a confused teenager trying to figure out who he is and what he wants in life.

Modris, a 17 year old boy, is living in a poor part of Latvia with his mother. He has a girlfriend and some good friends. He is not happy at all though, he never sees his dad anymore and he has a gambling problem. Modris’ mother keeps telling him that his dad is in jail, but he does not believe her. Things get way out of control when he starts to sell his mothers stuff just to get some cash to gamble with. When he takes his mom’s heater and sells it at the pawn shop, his mom loses it and calls the cops on him in hope that he will stop what he is doing because it is not going the right direction at all. But when he gets home from the police station and meets his mom, they start fighting and Modris runs away from home in the pursuit of finding his dad. On the way he bumps into more problems.
For some reason he is always ending up in some trouble, either with the police or with random people that he meets.

One thing I noticed was that there was almost no background music at all, only dietetic music. Every shot was handheld, no tripod shots. Some shots were really good though, really well framed.

If you like realistic, slow-paced, almost-documentary style shot films, this one is for you. The best part of the film was the ending because it really was a plot twist and it was visualized in a really good way. Just wait and see!