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Vodka
Lemon tastes like almonds, run at Central Cinema Seattle
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Vodka Lemon tastes like almonds, run at
Central Cinema Seattle
19.5.2006
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Vodka Lemon opened its
run at
Central Cinema last night and Seattlest was
there because, after a forceful interior discussion,
we couldn't recall ever having seen an
Armenian film. Certainly not lately. Vodka Lemon
was shown in Seattle for the 2004 SIFF, but since we
usually stall out by the third page of the catalog,
this was news to us.
In other news, before we get to the movie, Central
Cinema has a new spring menu. (Which is not this pdf
on their site. That's the old one.) It's a seasonal
update; they're still all about those pizzas and
beer. On rotating tap (picture a possessed faucet
twirling for just a second) is a summery Belgian
beer which we could have just kicked ourselves for
forgetting to try.
Now the little thumbnail review: Vodka Lemon is set
in an area of Armenia that will profit greatly from
the effects of global warming.
The scenery is stark, snowy, and frozen; people's
faces are chapped and reddened by windburn; and we
learn that Armenians (in this film at least) sit
around on chairs in the elements to discuss the
affairs of the day.
Director Hiner Saleem, an exiled Iraqi Kurd, places
a budding romance between two widowers in front of
the evidence of wrenching decay. (With the fall of
the the USSR, Armenia was unhooked from its economic
life-support machine.) Saleem offers us allegory,
but he remembers to ground it in scenes from a rocky
life. |
By Vodka Lemon on DVD from Amazon |
Grizzled old Hamo has to survive on a pension of
less than $10/month, beg his sons (who have left
Armenia to find work) for extra cash, and slowly
sell his most treasured possessions to cover his bus
trips to the cemetery to update his dead wife with
the news that "things are fine." The whole village
is hard up, but somehow the movie skirts being grim
-- Hamo's not-exactly-surefooted courtship of a
younger widow not only lightens the mood, it
embiggens the soul.
Vodka Lemon plays a minor but essential part.
Someone complains that it tastes like almonds, not
lemon.
"That's Armenia!" is the laconic response. The movie
plays through Sunday. If you go see just one
Armenian film directed by an Iraqi Kurd this year,
you'd be hard-pressed to beat this one. Let us know
about the Belgian beer.
Seattlest com
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