Film Archive

Spoon

Documentary Films - Competition 2019 / Karote / Latvia, Norway, Lithuania 2019

The plastic spoon was able to feign harmless unimportance until the moment Laila Pakalniņa, a distinctive international documentary filmmaker, cast her piercing glance its way. Her wordless film, whose humor arises from the surprising possibilities cinema has to offer, sings a dirge for this ornament of our bloated civilization: a piece of cheap plastic that will likely soon fade into history.

Synopsis

The ordinary plastic spoon has tried to pull the wool over our eyes. But how long could it feign harmless unimportance? Only until Laila Pakalniņa cast her piercing glance its way. This distinctive Latvian documentarist knows very well how much paradoxical effort people and machines have invested in the manufacture of disposable utensils, and so she can’t hide a heartless smirk. After all, this plastic servant will breathe its last just as its existence finally begins to have meaning. With humor drawn from the surprising possibilities cinema has to offer, this wordless film sings a dirge for an icon of our bloated civilization: a piece of cheap plastic that will likely soon fade into history.

Martin Horyna

About the film

65 min / Black & white, DCP
World premiere
Director Laila Pakalniņa / Screenplay Laila Pakalniņa / Dir. of Photography Gints Berzins / Music Malika Makouf Rasmussen / Editor Silvija Vikaite / Producer Laila Pakalniņa / Production Hargla Company / Coproduction Mechanix Film, Just a Moment / Contact Hargla Company

About the director

Laila Pakalniņa (b. 1962, Liepāja, Latvia). Selected filmography: The Linen (Veļa, 1991), The Ferry (Prāmis, 1994), The Mail (Pasts, 1995), The Shoe (Kurpe, 1998), The Python (Pitons, 2003), Dream Land (Leiputrija, 2004), Theodor (Teodors, 2006), The Water (Udens, 2006), Pizzas (Picas, 2012), The Chimney (Skurstenis, 2013), Dawn (Ausma, 2015), Spoon (Karote, 2019)