13/02/2012

Anja Salomonovitz’s second feature film Spain [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is a road movie that without movement, with multiple storylines and a temporal surprise, in addition to being an immigration story, which is already a staple subject of recent Austrian cinema.

The storylines do not, as usual in this kind of film, intertwine overmuch, rather they serve as triggers for each another. Sava (Gregoire Colin) gets stranded in a Lower Austrian village on his (illegal) way from Moldova to Spain, where he starts working for the local priest (Wolf Bachofner), reparing the old church. Sava falls for Magdalena (Tatjana Alexander), a restorator and painter of religious icons (for Orthodox Christian markets). Her ex-husband Albert (Cornelius Obonya) is a police officer in charge of illegal immigration, and keeps trying everything from pleading to physial threats to get her back. They are all, in a way, connected to Gabriel (Lukas Miko), a gambling addict who's in constant debt.

Co-written by Salomonovitz and Bulgarian artist Dimitré Dinev, the script is not 'tight' in the usual sense of the word, but its relative looseness is what makes this story work. Nothing is set for good in the characters’ lives, except for their wishes. And what they have in common are unusually long streaks of bad luck. They sometimes try to take advantage of others’ misfortunes, and it rarely works.

But this is as far as it gets from a religious point about good or bad. Religion in the film is stripped to its physical basics: we get a lot of scenes in which Sava and Magdalena (ironic name for the character?) work on the church, fixing, removing and adding pieces of its interior. When the priest asks Sava why he wants to go to Spain, he replies: “In Spain, people still fear God. A God-fearing country is a good place to live.” This probably relates to the fact that, for a long time, Spain had a looser immigration policy than most European countries, including Austria.

Salomonovitz obviously cares a lot about the visual aspect, and the set design and camera work are carefully planned. The dominant colour is brown, which alternately echoes of Western, film noir or even David Lynch, depending on the setting and the situation. Other colours are complementary and the tone never wavers, which gives the film an important strength and stability.

Spain was produced by Austria’s Dor Film. Paris-based Doc & Film International handles the international rights.