Moskatchka

Using tableau-like takes of different spots in the Muscovite suburb of Moskatchka (the poor quarter of the Latvian capital Riga), this film shows fragments of the choreography of life and combines them to form a picture of reality. Without making any comments, the camera observes people’s behaviour in a way reminiscent of early Flaherty and how his camera ‘stuck to’ his filmed heroes. It also reminds us of the beginning of film art, when the recording of reality on a strip of film was an event, in spite of its accidental character. In the process, the eye of the camera doesn’t reveal any evident, fruitful activities, which lends them an eventless, eternal, mythical and absurd character. The events seem to have started long before the first shot of the film, and they do not come to an end after a certain point of time, thus destroying the gamut of chronological succession. The poetry of the simplicity of life. With parallel editing of a few stories and single frames, the director succeeds in her first film in creating a very personal feeling of a visit to this place – and does it so intensely that one almost feels uneasy about disturbing the people’s privacy. She and the cameraman wonderfully capture the atmosphere of this unknown and certainly un-touristy part of Riga that has a charm of its own. (LC)