quietearth [Celluloid 12.04.12] drama



Veiko Ounpuu's films view humanity's daftness through a lens of despair and depression and the end product turns out to be effortlessly cool, stylish, and darkly humorous. His latest, which he calls an "anti-western" looks like it will follow the same somber path of the Eastern European "independent" oddity as evinced by the stylish, unrevealing teaser we've been provided.

The full title is "Free Range / Ballad on Approving of the World." We've been told it will be released in August.


How to live knowing that you might never know joy in day-to-day life? That you will never know the true pride from your work? That there is no meaning, no goal, no hope for improvement? That life will continue and you have to get used to it and also to the idea that it might go on for a long time and, worst of all, it is almost impossible to put up with it in a dignified way?

I am referring to shoddy housing, meagre food, poverty and the extensive coarseness below and stolid indifference above, and to the dreadful machinery that minces its way through the lives of most of us, evermore efficient, ceasing little by little to even pretend that this is not our murder, packed and sold to us in variable forms. Where should we head to, cattle for slaughter, and how is it possible to participate in all this, without losing our humanity and the last bits of our lust for life?

Fred (29), an aspiring writer, is thrust into the middle of these questions – his girlfriend Susanna (23) is pregnant and intends to keep the baby.

For those of you who've missed the works of Estonia's preeminent director, I strongly suggest you watch his first piece, Autumn Ball then head on over to The Temptation of St. Tony which premiered at Sundance a couple of years back.

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