QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

As the war rages outside, poor Anton (Yurii Kulinich) gets trapped inside a underground wooden shaft somewhere in Ukraine. His arm is broken and his leg has a piece of shrapnel still attached to it. The screams and moans as he mobilises his arm with a makeshift sling, composed of two pieces of rotten wood. He removes the foreign object from his leg and cleans his wound with alcohol. He’s entirely on his own. Except for friendly mouse whom he decides to call Mr Remi, in a tribute to his child’s favourite television show.

Fortunately, the space is filled with food, posters and mobile paraphernalia. Enough to keep him going for an undisclosed amount of time. He is even able to to turn his mobile phone on, and look at some pictures of his loved ones. There is always hope that he might be able to communicate with a nearby Ukrainian troop., Meanwhile, he’s left to wrestle with his thoughts, and also talk to Mr Remi. Despite his concerns that the tiny rodent might be a rabies carrier, they bond. He allows tolerance to prevail. After all, he’s not a “ratist” (a racist who hates rats). He asks Mr Remi whether he’s got any children, before noting that he’s a mouse, and 300 offspring is probably a reasonable count. He questions him about the absence of a wedding ring. Mr Remi squeaks. And nothing else.

There are hardly any developments in this 87-minute chamber piece intended to penetrate the psychology of a caged soldier, with few hopes of being rescued. So he expresses his thoughts out loud. He misses home, he despises the Russians, and he feels trapped. There is no groundbreaking revelation, reflection or solution. Every line, every development is deeply cliched. He sees the dead soldier of his brother Max, and promises him that he will avenge his death. And he fantasises about the woman of his life. A dream sequence of his beloved wife resembles a short clip from the midnight soft porn channel.

There is nothing to rescue this movie from its resolute irrelevance. The acting is very poor: close your eyes and you could perfectly mistake Kulinich’s grumbling and grunting for a steamy sexual encounter. The storyline barely exists, the production values are primary school level. The film opens with credits crumbling to dust, the cheapest type of SFX conceivable. The blood looks like gouache paint. The soundtrack consists of cheesy pop combined with heavy drumming in the most decisive moments. An inexplicable amount of artificial lighting keeps our underground hero perfectly lit. And then, for equally mysterious reasons, the lighting turns red in the final third of the story.

This isn’t even an anti-war film. There are no subtleties. The message is written on the wall: Anton dreams of revenge. And as soon as he gets out of the hole, he will fight those evil Russians with all his heart and soul. The ambitions of the rodent, on the other hand, remain far more debatable. Remi is the most complex character of the movie.

The Mousetrap just premiered in the Official Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Don’t get trapped inside the cinema. Escape at the first opportunity.