London Film Festival

Gravehopping" (Odgrobadogroba, Jan Cvitkovič, 2005) - 2 November
Set in the Karst region of Slovenia, Jan Cvitkovič's striking black comedy begins with a quotation from J.D. Salinger: "I was six when I saw that everything was God and my hair stood up". His hero, Pero, makes a living giving speeches at funerals while his father Dedo, pining for the wife that died six years ago, makes repeatedly inventive but unsuccessful attempts to kill himself. Pero's speeches are full of nonsense, euphemism, and fragments of personal philosophy that pass over the heads of the mourners. His neighbour Šuki, after watching a chariot race in an Italian sword and sandal epic, fashions jagged blades for the hubs of his car. But the film's philosophical concern with life and death, heaven and hell, its humorous and absurd approach to the chaos of life, is no match for the hidden cruelties that lie behind conventional facades or the grotesque brutalities that can suddenly erupt from within its apparently peaceful setting. Gregor Bakovič gives a brilliantly deadpan performance as Pero and the whole cast remain superbly in tune with Cvitkovič's black and ironic portrait of the human condition. (London Film Festival, 2005)