The Shoe

Latvian director Laila Pakalnina displays a strong visual sense in this 1998 satire of Soviet military bureaucracy (in fact, the individual compositions—in luminous black-and-white—are often so striking that they wouldn't be out of place framed on museum walls). But in terms of plot, the film is so thin that it seems overextended (even at less than 80 minutes). To wit: an army patrol finds a woman's shoe on a restricted beach, and the command—certain that the border has been breached—sends three soldiers (a sergeant and two hapless privates) into a nearby town to search for the woman who left it behind. The bulk of the picture is taken up observing this trio of sad sacks as they circulate among the locals, forcing all likely suspects to try on the shoe. Granted, there are occasional moments of sly humor in this Cinderella-inspired film, but Pakalnina's slow pacing and obsessive concern over precise camerawork quickly drain the picture of energy, and the laughs are few and far between. The Shoe might have worked nicely as a short, but as a feature film it overstays its welcome. An optional purchase. (F. Swietek)