Riga taxi driver Marek works at night to support his son. One day from the salon of his car disappears money that he owes the boss for the crashed car. Now, in order to collect at least half of the required amount in one night, Marek goes to the daring Odyssey in the night Riga, aiming at the most tasty places for a taxi driver - the capital's airport and hotels. With his reckless actions, he is increasingly upsetting the shaky balance between competing taxi companies.
The figure of a city taxi driver (a caravan driver, cabman, etc.) in world culture is often presented as someone mysterious, who has known all the roads of the world, towering above unworthy fuss. Screen Marek, however, is not at all like this - he is sometimes sentimental and soft-hearted, but much more fussy than others, brings only chaos with him than endangers people around him. It seems that without coolness in this business can not survive?
Absolutely, yes. The world in which Marek lives is harsh, studded with bare trees and covered with a lead Baltic sky (the feeling that autumn will never stop there). Female touch in it is not felt even more – a few ladies in the plot perform exclusively episodic and third-plan roles. “Riga is full of all sorts of idiots & #39,” one of the most colorful characters in history tells a bad cab driver. There are no reasonable people in this reality.
Be that as it may, the universe ' Changes' looks very whole - this world, as if preserved since the 90s and still existing parallel to our usual Riga reality, is perfectly sealed, convincing and does not cause any questions. Which, to be honest, is quite alarming, since, according to the creators of the film ' Shifts', the script of the film is based on the stories of ordinary taxi drivers, and until recently about 80% of the Latvian taxi business worked semi-legally.
Marek, like his colleagues, is much more comfortable with the confined space of his own machine. It is understandable - the microcosm of a comfortable car interior with a measured swaying and calming snapping of the turn signal is much more attractive than the hostile reality outside. This film reminds Calvins a kind of neo-Western, where faithful horses were replaced by no less faithful cars - sedans, SUVs, vans, etc. Iron horses here are full-fledged heroes of the story, even the camera leaves the car only when absolutely necessary. And, although the director calls his work an homage to the capital, we, together with the heroes, contemplate urban landscapes exclusively through car windows.
However, let the abundance of machines do not confuse you in the search for references. Among the films with which it draws to associate ' Shift', there is no legendary 'Taxi Driver' Scorsese, neither 'Boomer' Cinematic simplicity, cleansing of everything superfluous, the picture of Kalvinsh rather resembles meditative near-criminal dramas, like Russian ' Schultes' or American ' Advisor' and unexpectedly evil sociality, hooliganism of the topic - a whole era of Soviet Perestroika cinema, when a whole wave of energetic, topical films burst into cinemas, the heroes of which have never before met on the big screen.
Of course, locking the camera inside the car is not so much a stylistic decision as a forced measure due to budget constraints. However, the director had enough talent to pass off savings for intentional cameramanship and minimalism. Let's give the creators credit - the limited means and resources of the film team used for a hundred - to the envy, by the way, of many filmmakers of the world. In the film there is not a single familiar actor, almost no movie beauty, not even music. But there is simply an incredible ease of presentation, which in any case should not be confused with detachment.
' Smena' thus not only returned to the system of the national cinema that had been silent for six months, she gave birth to a new name in Latvian filmmaking - Reinis Kalvins already in his debut proved that he was not just able to create a whole and expressive work (he was greatly helped by the Romanian operator Georghe Chiper-Lillemark and, perhaps, the perfectly selected actor Edgar Ozolins). He manages to do what, for some reason, few people in Latvian cinema know how to do - to let each episode be dramatic and last exactly as long as necessary. It is this skill that many Latvian producers lack so much.
However, the ideal first picture of Calvinsh still can not be called, and after the middle of the film noticeably loses ground in terms of drama. However, I would like to see this not as professional negligence, but simply an annoying oversight by an as yet insufficiently experienced director. With this faith, we will look to the future of his career.
'Smena' is an extremely successful film to mark the full return of Latvian cinema to the big screens after a forced absence. It is a pity that the film is unlikely to be as successful as the much less worthy national film projects.
8 out of 10