Friday, April 25, 2008

2008 Tribeca Film Festival: 57,000 Kilometers Between US:

Delphine Kreuter




Wow: this is a film that I will never forget. The plot is convoluted but by the end this dysfunctional family and the dysfunctional film come together in a moving last few scenes that turn my smiles and laughter into a flow of genuine tears.

Nat, a fourteen year old girl, devotes her spare time to being on the internet situated in a bedroom which is stimulus plus where she connects with people she has never seen and never intends to make human contact with. Two men dominate her internet life, Adrian, a teenager who lives in seclusion in a hospital and a man who satisfies his desire to be a baby through his internet connection to Nat.

Nat's non internet life resembles her internet life: bizarre, unfeeling, unconnected to real people. Her step father,simon, who is obsessed with photographing the family that he thinks is "perfect" in all their moments, unposed and yet posed for the sake of his endeavor, puts the camera between himself and his immediate world to disallow any real human contact.
Margot the houseewife/mother of Nat and new wife to Simon is so devoted to her husband that her daughter is rarely part of her conscious mind and Nat's real father Nicole is a transexual living a life that does not allow for an emotionally fulfilling relationship with his daughter.


Through these strange people and relationships a girl emerges,Nat floats with the motion of the video game transport and physicality into and out of one scene and then another.


This film will delight and sadden even the most hard hearted to the trials and tribulations of today's world. It is a true masterpiece in its attention to relevant detail, its extraordiary acting and the power it holds to bring us to our senses, to connect to the bizarre world in which we now live.

This film exemplifies the best of a film festival. Without Tribeca I would never be exposed to such a rich and beautiful and emotionally full experience that 57,000 KM Between Us afforded me.


Go see it before it disappears forever and ever.


Linda Zises

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