So Kilometre Zero bears its place in the history of me as being the first movie I have seen at a red carpet screening. I got all dressed up, walked down the red carpet in Le Grande Theatre Lumiere in the Palais, and saw the actors (Nazmi Kirik and Belcim Bigin) and director (Hiner Saleem) come in. In Competition for
the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It was very odd, the basic way I can describe it is this Iraqi road trip movie, that was sort of a weird comedy amidst this war zone. The performances were all good. The main character Ako was likeable. The best performance/part, however, was Salma's father, an old crazy man in a bed, who torment's Ako and is very, VERY funny, especially as he is wheeled along in his bed as they escape Iraq. The basic gist of it was that Ako was recruited into Saddam Hussein's army, then later had to take a body back to it's relatives, and then escapes with his wife and child to France. So, there was these weird comedic moments amidst all this tragedy, with this message at the end that is supposed to convey elation over the freedom of Iraq. It was all sort of messy and didn't fit together quite right, and dragged on a lot. Yet, it was one of the less boring films In Competition. The Opinion: Meh.
May 26, 2005
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