Listy do M.; Letters to St Nicholas; Pisma Sv. Nikolaju, 2001

Listy do M., Letters to St. Nicholas; Pisma Sv. Nikolaju, 2011
Director: Mitja Okorn
Cast: Maciej Stuhr, Roma Gasiorowska, Tomazs Karolak




Stage: Liffe, Kino Komuna. With the director in the room


Listy in short: Five stories of five women and men intertwine in Warsaw on 24 December. Different priorities, different lifestyles and different things they have lost in their lives. What they have in common is that they all wish for a change. How will each one of them spend Christmas and how it will affect their lives?



Preps: A lot of media fuss around this piece. Obviously, because of the good diplomacy and anarchy we live in in our beautiful Slovenia, local cinemography isn't supported as it should be. Even the prospects like Okorn, don't get the funding, unfortunately. With scientists you call it flee of brains, with directors, flee of good movie directors to another country. To cut the long story short, he got the funding at Polish government, after proving himself with a series shooting in Poland. The movie exceeded 600.000 viewers in its first week of screening. Obviously I am more than a supporter to slovenian movie directors and whenever I am on LIFFE, I will certainly go and see all the slovenian, croatian, bosnian, serbian movies. A lot of patriotism running in my cinemascopic veins, but merely in this area. So I am curious what the fuss is all about.




Reality: Wow. So cute my heart melts. From its very beginning to the end it keeps me happy and curious how it goes on. Therefore I claim it has a flow, a realistic story one can easily embed in his/her own life, regardless of the country you come from. The universal Christmas celebration brings a lot of people together and drives even more souls apart. How come everyone needs to be happy and everyone should be happy at Christmas?
A lot of people just aren't happy around Christmas period. So many reminders to push the true family love spirit and things you should do around Christmas. It isn't a surprise, a lot of suicides happen in this period and if someone measured the depression some people feel being alone in this festive season, there would be a huge surprise I guess in the actual number of people that aren't happy. If you add those that pretend to be happy and have a family, you would come up with a surprising figure. The matter of fact is, rarely people get to be really really happy about their lives and the period of Xmas is the period that inevitabely reminds us about the things one should have to be perfect and to be "human" - among those is also someone to spend the Xmas evening with, waking up with perfect man/woman beside you, having your child at the table when the dinner is happening, spending the evening chatting with the persons you love truly expressing you love them..
The movie in its very beginning shows the true opposite. Not all people want to celebrate, because they feel there's nothing to celebrate. On the other hand, a lot of people are working on this evening, their bosses don't care about their wishes. A lot of people seek work so they would forget being alone on this holy day. Furthermore, when I see someone making a suicide, later on surviving by a strike of luck and trying to convert his unhapiness to hapiness by force (obviously fail in the first xxx attempts, but at the end of the movie - predicteably wins his game). The movie depicts different really sad and real situations, that occur on the christmas day in Warshaw. And tries to convert them into real happening afterwards, that in some cases leads to hapiness, in other leads to more misfortune.
Sane humour inside, a lot of black ironic scenes, where you need to laugh, even though the scene is truly sad. The kids pouring water to turn into ice before the doorstep to make people fall. The man throwing out the TV. St. Nicholas falling down the floor, later on chasing a young man across the store, just to get the hot chick's phone back. The radio guy wearing a frosty costume to make his kid smile while he's working the Xmas eve/night. A lot of others that make the audience shiver with laughter and positive optimism that doesn't end until the end of the movie.

A brilliant movie in its genre, something true and real, yet inspiring and romantic. Something you need to see in the festive period. Something that will make you want to have your own Xmas tree. Something Slovenia should be grateful to Okorn for. I loved it.


My personal rate: 9,5 (in its genre, something so smooth, funny, romantic and excellent you truly need to see it!)


Listy do M. on IMDB