In "The Ring Finger," Iris(Olga Kurylenko) loses the tip of her ring finger in an industrial accident in a lemonade factory.(Forgive me for the grossness, but I don't think I'll ever be able to drink pink lemonade again.) Looking for a different line of work, she travels to a new city but at first can find no work at
the port and the only room she can find she has to share with Costa(Stipe Erceg), a sailor who works the night shift. She does soon find work in a laboratory as a receptionist for a scientist(Marc Barbe) who preserves and archives items of sentimental value and presents her with the gift of a pair of red shoes.
"The Ring Finger" is a beguiling, sensual and nuanced movie. It uses an offbeat rhythm to explore a place that might exist out of time, in order to ensure the items will not decay. Iris is not sure how long she has been working at the laboratory, which contains no modern equipment and is lacking any air conditioning. She says two or three weeks but it could be months or even decades. As with any dead end job, where there is not a lot to do, time moves in an odd fashion. A day can feel like a week but before you know it, years have gone by. This might explain why Iris and Costa are not quite in sync.
August 9, 2010
