REVIEWED - 13/TZAMETI: GÉLA Babluani's debut feature, a concise monochrome thriller with existentialist leanings, re-imagines the Mexican stand-off as a brutal spectator sport.
The middle act of this Franco-Georgian film takes place in an isolated mansion where desperate young men, urged on by angry gamblers, play an ingeniously twisted version of Russian roulette.
The participants form themselves into a circle, place one bullet in a revolver, spin the chamber and point the barrel at the back of their neighbour's head. When a light goes on the triggers are pulled. The survivors repeat the procedure with two bullets. Then three. And so on.
The director, son of the Georgian film-maker Temur Babluani, came of age during his country's savage civil war and, thus, might be expected to view the world through blood-coloured glasses. He has used that pessimistic vision to impressive effect here. 13 is perhaps a little one-note - those in search of comic relief should look elsewhere - but its suffocating atmosphere and images of silvery misery make for compulsive viewing.
Babluani's smartest move was to cast his clear-eyed, babyfaced brother George in the lead role. He plays an immigrant who, while labouring on a French hoodlum's house, happens upon an envelope that seems to offer the prospect of riches. Following instructions meant for his now deceased employer, he embarks on a train journey towards an uncertain destination. He thinks he will be handed a suitcase full of money. Instead, he becomes embroiled in recreational murder.
George Babluani's pretty features contrast markedly with the hanging brows, thin mouths and rheumy eyes that adorn the faces of the gamblers and participants in the grim arena. A psychotically officious umpire barks out commands. The gamblers, viewing the participants as no more worthy of compassion than the gears of a slot machine, carry out their deals with grim deliberation.
The sense of hope and innocence being corrupted helps create a persuasive argument for the anti-tenets of nihilism. It is surely giving nothing away to say that the film does not end with a dance number.
