Tangerines [Mandariinid] **** (2013, Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Nüganen, Giorgi Nakashidze) – Movie Review

Lembit Ulfsak is extraordinary as elderly Estonian man Ivo, who has stayed behind with his buddy Marcus to harvest his crop of tangerines in evacuated, war-torn in Georgia, Apkhazeti region, in 1990. Apkhazians are fighting to break free from Georgia.

When there is a bloody shoot-out by rival sides in the road outside his buddy’s door, a badly wounded man survives and Ivo decides take him in and nurse him back to health. [Spoiler alert] Burying the dead, Ivo and Marcus find one more man is still alive, and they take him in, but he is on the opposite sides of the war from the first wounded man and has killed his buddy.

Writer-director Zaza Urushadze’s powerful film is a superb war drama, with tension throughout, some effectively staged sudden shock twists and turns, and a searing climax. It’s great to have a proper story and compelling dialogue of the kind you hardly ever get in Hollywood movies. The screenplay gives Ulfsak a great role, and he responds to it magnificently, owning the dialogue beautifully and inhabiting the physical space perfectly.

It was Oscar and Golden Globe nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, and unlucky not to win either award.

It won the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2013 Estonian Film Award for its ‘heartfelt story, which takes us on an emotional journey juxtaposing duty and humanity’ and Warsaw International Film Festival 2013 made Urushadze Best Director: ‘The director of the film succeeded in telling a simple, yet very powerful story in a manner that created a warm, delicate, sweet and sour world’.

Tangerines feature, but not crucially.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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