Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
13 (2005)
Director: Géla Babluani
Movie review
From Time Out London
A high-concept suspense picture set in France but centred on a young Georgian immigrant, this is very potent if ultimately rather hollow film-making: it gets the pulse racing but offers little to chew on besides your fingernails. Fresh-faced Sébastien (Georges Bebluani) gets wind of a mysterious get-rich-quick scheme while doing repairs for a junky who’s living on borrowed time. Realising his odds of getting paid are slim, he pockets the train ticket and hotel reservation that seem to offer money for nothing and sets off to Paris, then into the woods…What he finds there is a genuine shock, a horror of man-made behaviour to rival the supernatural shenanigans of the Blair Witch and rendered all the more grim for being executed in the name of fun (not that anyone involved wears a smile). The ordeal to which Sébastien finds himself committed unfolds in scenes of gripping animalistic compulsion whose tension increases exponentially… before being allowed to dribble away in a plodding, schematic third act that feels like a half-hearted retread of Wong Kar-Wai’s ‘Days of Being Wild’.
Director Géla Babluani (brother of the lead and son of established Georgian director Temur Babluani) offers some striking black-and-white compositions whose stark contrasts echo the jarring mismatch between Sébastien’s naive beauty and the weathered countenances of those around him. Hard to tell, though, whether the film’s violence is emblematic of a new borderless Europe where everyone looks out for number one, or simply reflects filmmakers’ love for guns.
Author: BW
Time Out London Issue 1846: January 4-11 2006
Cast & crew
Director: Géla Babluani
Producer: Géla Babluani, Jean-Baptiste Legrand, Fanny Saadi
Cast: George Babluani, Pascal Bongard, Augustin Legrand, Philippe Passon, Aurélien Recoing, François Rimbau, Fred Ulysse full cast
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now