Cycle index

Collectress

Kolekcionierė

dir. Kristina Buožytė / Lithuania 2008 / 84’

subtitles: Polish and English

Panorama $9.99, 12 Lotus, Beeswax, Blue Beard, Breathless, Collectress, Ecce Momo!, Hooked, I am Not Your Friend + I Will Not Be Your Friend, Katalin Varga, Machan, My Only Sunshine, My Sweet Shirin, North, Nymph, Ordinary People, Palermo Shooting, Parque vía, Rachel Getting Married, Ricky, Schottentor, Seraphine, Stella, The Northern Land, The Other One, The Rat Herb, The Visitor, The White Ribbon, Two Lines, Under the Tree, Winter Silence Section index

Cast

Gabija Jaraminaitė, Marius Jampolskis, Valda Bickute, Darius Gumauskas

Film description

The film is as icy as its main character. Aseptic surroundings in metallic colours are a perfect reflection of Gaile, who is a personification of coldness and apathy. It seems she would love to melt in the air. Her suppressing resignation gets even worse when her father dies. She tries to escape the existential trap by shooting different scenes she acts in herself and then watching them. The camera excludes fear and uncertainty, it allows for safe involvement. The woman gets excited with the staged events, she regains joy and vitality although she manipulates other people - which is ethically ambiguous sometimes. Gaile collects micro-narratives which make up a bizarre collage of genres, mixed experiences, juggling with feelings, but they are also a strange way to liberation. The distance is crossed, the personality reconstructed. The door to the world of the living is finally open. This clench of subjectivity and technique brings the Lithuanian director closer to Atom Egoyan, a shrewd observer of issues of identity in modern media.

Błażej Hrapkowicz