Isaac
Izaokas | Jurgis Matulevicius | Lithuania, 2019 | Lithuanian/Russian (English subtitles) | Drama | 104m | DCP | IMDB | Distributor/Sales: Bob’s Your Uncle | Festival marketing sample: Glasgow Film Festival 2020 | Trailer
Description: During the 1941 Lietukis Garage massacre, a Lithuanian nationalist released from prison kills a Jewish neighbour, Isaac, whom he suspected had reported him to the previous Soviet occupiers. Twentyfive years later, the filmmaker Gediminas Gutauskas returns from the US to make a film that recreates the event. The seeming accuracy of the details in the script pick the interest of a KGB investigator who intends to prosecute Isaac’s murderer.
Merits: Matulevicius’s first feature is dark, elegant and noirish and is inspired by the massacre that actually occurred in June 1941 in Kaunas, Lithuania. Nevertheless, I found some of the fictional elements in the film somewhat confusing. The idea that a Lithuanian filmmaker would return to Soviet occupied Lithuania from the US in 1964 expecting to make a historical film about WW2 without encountering difficulties seems to defy credibility. Aleksas Kazanavicius’s performance as the tormented Andrias appears a little OTT.
Rating: Nudity, graphic violence, graphic sex.