DVD OF THE WEEK

TEARS FOR SALE ****
Dir: Uros Stojanovic. Starring: Stefan Kapicic, Katarina Radivojevic, Sonja Kolacaric

I know absolutely nothing about Serbian films so have no way of telling whether Tears For Sale (known internationally as Charleston & Vendetta) is typical or not. If it is then the country is weird beyond belief.
Told in the style of the surreal fairytale likes of Amelie (or possibly the films of Canadian Guy Madden and animated work of Jan Svankmajer) it tells the story of two sisters in 1918, living in a stylised village where nearly all the men are dead. They (and their family) are 'wailers”, paid to mourn at funerals, so business has understandably dried up. About to be burned at the stake for accidentally killing the village's last male (in an ill-advised attempt at getting a 'caress”) the sisters escape by agreeing to head out and bring back a man to service the village-folk. It's kinda like magic realism but with less realism and a good dollop of mordant pitch-black humour.
There is much to wonder at here, from the intoxicating joys of 'spider brandy” to the vineyard planted with mines where the village women regularly explode.
But perhaps it is all an elaborate satire poking fun at an image of Serbs being miserable. At one point a gypsy trio sings a song that goes 'We're going to cry all day today, we're going to cry all day tomorrow” – when asked for a happy song no one can think of one so they offer to 'play the funeral dirge slightly faster.” If that's the sort of droll humour that tickles your funny bone then this is the film for you. It's certainly one out of the bag but, be warned, the subtitles are on the small side.

Triage (****) opens with a shot of Colin Farrell's battered, nearly lifeless body, before flashing back. He is Mark and along with best friend David is a war photographer in Kurdistan. It is the late eighties. Father-to-be David is burnt out by the brutality of the conflict and heads home but, upon Mark's eventual return to Britain he discovers David is missing. Mark's scars, however, run deeper than the physical and with counselling from a very good Christopher Lee secrets are uncovered. Triage is ultimately a low-key character study about the after-effects of war, beautifully shot and acted, and powerful in its moral complexities.

Young Eugene's mother has died so he spends his inheritance on a plethora of prostitutes and increasingly bizarre deviances. That's the 'sex” bit of Sex Drugs Guns (***), which comments on the nihilistic numbness and sensation-seeking of Generation Whatever. 'Drugs” sets a couple of pre-teens loose with the contents of a medicine cabinet. A streak of absurdist humour runs through the lashing of ironic morality in an extreme US indie whose trilogy of stories may garner cult acclaim by virtue of its generally warped sensibilities. Subtlety may be off the agenda but it certainly pushes boundaries, bringing to mind weird work by the likes of Japanese director Takashi Miike.

Nowhere Boy (***) tells the story of a young pre-Beatles John Lennon, or at least a version of the story of his young home life. He's a self-indulgent and aggressively unpleasant lad but obviously smart. Beatles fans might enjoy the story of his early life, split between straight-laced Aunt Mimi (Kirsten Scott Thomas) and his unstable spirited birth mother (Anne-Marie Duff) but one wonders if the slight story would be of interest had its subject not gone on to fame and fortune. A young Paul and unlikely George pop up towards the end and add a little interest.

What with graphic violence ensconced in the mainstream and the ready availability of porn there is little market for the sort of over-the-top exploitation flick that used to fuel drive-ins and grindhouses. The Cook (*) attempts to redress the balance with its story of sorority girls and their psychotic food-supplier. Shot on dreadful-looking digital video it promises 'graphic slaughter, involuntary cannibalism and a double helping of gourmet nudity” and, indeed, all three are present, but in infrequent enough doses to make it feel like a rip-off (much like the original exploitation films). Substandard in almost every way.