March 12, 2004

Peter Bradshaw

Slovenian writer-director Damjan Kozole has given us one of the most powerful and provocative movies of the year - currently only on release in London, but soon, I hope, on show around the country.

It's about the horrific trade in illegal immigrants into Europe and pulls no punches about what this involves, yet with extraordinary daring, Kozole invites us to sympathise with one of the smugglers.

Ludvik (Peter Musevski) is a former speedway champ who has drifted into this lucrative business, pocketing fistfuls of euros from desperate souls as they are shoved into his van, waiting to be taken across the border into Italy.

He is a seedy braggart who after a hard day exploiting sick and shivering human beings and colluding in the rape of their young womenfolk - a well-known smugglers' perk - he repairs to the local bar for an evening of drinking and whingeing about how filthy the world is.

The episodes that show how the illegals are treated are blood-chillingly horrible; yet Kozole wrongfoots us by opening up Ludwig's pathetic backstory, how his wife has died of cancer and how he is dying too.

Incredibly, Ludwig becomes human and almost likeable. Without ever seeking to diminish the evil for which he is responsible, the movie makes Ludwig a complex, weak, fallible human being. It's a remarkable film, and deserves to be set alongside Michael Winterbottom's In This World and Stephen Frears's Dirty Pretty Things.

March 9, 2004

By Jamie Russell 

With a story ripped fresh and bloody from the headlines, this Eastern European people-smuggling drama doesn't pull any punches, but it never quite hits the heart of the matter. Ex-Slovenian speedway champion Ludvik (Peter Musevski) and his young apprentice Rudi (Aljosa Kovacic) spend their nights smuggling asylum seekers across the border into Italy for 1000 Euros a head. It's an ugly world that takes its toll on everyone involved, not least of all Ludvik who's been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

As Rudi gradually overcomes his idealism and pangs of doubt, Ludvik's growing sense of mortality suddenly throws the plight of these refugees into sharp focus. Distinctly aware that he's likely sending these people to Italy to be drugged and used as "spare parts" (unwilling organ donors), Ludvik struggles with his "dirty conscious". He's also reluctant to turn his back on the grubby 'perks' of the job that include cherry-picking the female immigrants before forcing them into prostitution.

"A STARK SENSE OF PESSIMISM"

Shot through a gauze of yellow light, writer/director Damjan Kozole conveys a jaundiced world of poverty, disease, and desperation. Fascinated by the strangely touching relationship between Rudi and his dying mentor, he charts the actions of its central characters with a stark sense of pessimism. As the speedway track that features so heavily in the film suggests, these people are tracked in an endless circle of brutality and necessity.

While engrossed in their exploits, Kozole only fleetingly touches on the underlying issues. Ludvik's angry outbursts about globalisation and the E.U. are never developed, and the plight of the asylum seekers themselves becomes little more than convenient dramatic oil to get the rusty cogs of Ludvik's conscience moving again. Ultimately, Spare Parts grinds to a halt without living up to its promise.