– Croatian director Mate Ugrin’s feature debut is a subtle, atmospheric and ambiguous film about two young employees of a posh hotel who team up to steal from the rich guests
Gavrilo Jović and Tea Ljubešić in Petty Thieves
Ever since Bresson’s Pickpocket, thieves have been fascinating to arthouse filmmakers, and the angle taken would often depend on the social situation of the time. Croatian director Mate Ugrin‘s feature debut, Petty Thieves, which has just had its world premiere in Karlovy Vary‘s Proxima competition, finds an ambiguous middle ground between such stories as The Square on the one hand, and Shoplifters or Parasite on the other, being more a film of distanced exploration of mental and emotional states than a straightforward piece of storytelling.
It’s not that it doesn’t have a narrative; it’s just that the narrative is not the main point. Young, quiet Rio (Serbian newcomer Gavrilo Jović) lives on the Istrian coast and works in the kitchen of a posh hotel, as a low-level chef. His grandparents, played by Snježana Sinovčić (also seen this year in Honey Bunny) and Bosnian veteran Izudin Bajrović, live nearby, and struggle with the grandfather’s dementia. Despite her obvious love for her husband, Grandma wants to put him in a care home, infatuated as she is by a charming Italian lover, while Rio would like to keep him at home.
Rio commits little thefts, such as on the beach as a group of young people go night-swimming, or in the woods near the sea, which are a spot for gay cruising – inevitably reminiscent of Alain Guiraudie‘s Stranger by the Lake, except without the explicit sex. We are not sure whether Rio is gay or primarily goes there to steal, and he probably isn’t sure either.
When hotel beautician Andrea (Tea Ljubešić) spots Rio in the middle of one of his thefts, she suggests they team up. She has many rich clients and the hotel rooms with low balconies are ideal for breaking into at night. The two strike up an unusual friendship and this becomes a journey of exploration for both of them, as much as for the audience.
Nothing is certain in this film. Rio and Andrea have decent jobs, but they are seasonal workers, and in the current economy, this is often not enough to make a proper living. Besides, Rio wants to help his grandparents, but both he and Andrea also enjoy the adrenaline rush, even if the actors’ performances are decidedly subdued.
Ugrin has found perfect collaborators for such a subtle, atmospheric film. The director of photography is Ivan Marković, known for his work with Angela Schanelec, but also for his own idiosyncratic films such as From Tomorrow on, I Will. Here he employs meticulously composed shots, most often from a tripod, with natural lighting or discreet night shading. Many such shots see characters simply lying down or walking for a slightly extended period of time, but never for too long. This is thanks to Serbian editor Jelena Maksimović, who has made a name for herself with such an elliptical approach in films by young regional directors, as well as with her own directorial debut, Homelands.
Bathed in the rich sound design, stemming from the lovely Istrian nature and the sea on which Marković’s camera often lingers, and Nika Son‘s electronic score, which drones and pulsates, this is a film with an atmosphere that is not easy to pin down, and this may well be by design. It may be frustrating for some audiences with all its ambiguities and long passages of “nothing happening”, but this is exactly what others might enjoy.
Petty Thieves is a co-production between Croatia’s Kadromat, France’s In the Cut, Germany’s Fünferfilm and Serbia’s Nanslafu Films. Cercamon holds the international rights.
