Absurd theater in the 21st century

Rating: 6/10 (14 July 2006)

Let's call this a post-nihilist film: All the young characters are already used to the Pinter-ish feeling that life makes no sense, the world cannot be understood, communication and empathy are impossible, caring for any one else or trying to do anything meaningful is utterly futile. They do not expect anything from life, they do not even try to wait for Godot any more. They see modern poverty, richness, inequality, alienation, injustice at the side of their roads, taking all of it for granted, failing to understand whether it has anything to do with their own misery. They do not even suffer; if they ever heard about Sisyphe, which seems rather unlikely, they just don't care. They simply vegetate, doing absurd things - working as a policeman, being on drugs, being rich, living on the verge of mental disorders - whatever, it simply makes no difference.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, Godot arrives in their quiet city: A young man who fled his loveless father a decade ago and returns for his mother's funeral. In several ways, this guy fits perfectly into ubiquitous absurdity: He is as far from knowing anything about himself as any one else, and he is doing as little as any one else. Yet, his appearance does make a difference; in a way, it is utterly disturbing: He arouses genuine curiosity. Curiosity is what slowly makes tiny bits of empathy creep into all that ocean of indifference and absurdity. No wonder this leads to a love story - but this love story is not the whole point: Even though absurdity mostly prevails, some of the other characters slowly start acting in slightly more human ways, too. Watch out for it!
Lots of other comments blame the incoherence of the film, the incredibility of its characters, the many clichés. Right, true. But maybe part of that was even done on purpose. After all, what kind of coherence, philosophical depth and fine art do you expect in a film about post-modern absurdity? Probably some of the film's jokes will seem silly to you, perhaps you will enjoy others, perhaps you will even enjoy the ironical way some of the silly ones are presented...
There has been absurd theater before this film, so showing absurdity is certainly nothing new. Proposing empathy and love as a remedy to absurdity is not exactly original, either - yet, in spite of the film's many shortcomings, the way this idea is presented does not seem disgraceful or artless to me. There is some charm about it.
And i feel there is at least one idea shown in this film that hadn't occurred to me before. It's in the last sentence spoken in the film. I can't tell any more about it, or I would have to mark this as a spoiler. When you heard this last sentence, re-read my previous paragraph. Taking the film alone, the conclusion you will arrive at is frightfully credible.