Indian Summer

Petty rivalries, spitefulness and a very tentative symbiosis are the subjects of this first feature, a low key study - adapted from a story by F Scott Fitzgerald - of two mismatched cousins spending a summer together in their granny's country home. One, Marie (Vilhelmová), is an average girl of the world, callow and unimpressed with her choice of admirers; the other, Klára (Issová), seems like an alien next to her, gauche, rigid and clueless about the conventions of teen dating. Writer/director Gedeon's deliberate, understated style is already much in evidence, and though not as lyrical as Return of the Idiot, nor finally as affecting, the film offers similarly discreet performances, a fastidious eye, and gently deprecating humour. Not to mention its intriguingly odd, and oddly effective, choice of imagery - apples, bobs, and Indian scalping.