neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Tuvalu
	Viet Helmer Denis Lavant, Chulpan Hamatova 2001		In the spirit of Buster Keaton's deadpan silent-era antics and Jacques Tati's off-kilter atomic-age whimsy, German filmmaker Viet Helmer's rare comic fable is like nothing playing in first-run movie theaters today. If you can find it at an art-house near you, if you can get with imaginative, dreamlike black-and-white cinematography that's been cannily tinted after the fact and you don't need to hear dialogue in order to enjoy and comprehend a film, buy a ticket to "Tuvalu." Gnomish French actor Denis Lavant ("Beau Travail") plays a timid, devoted son who helps his blind, aged father run a dilapidated public swimming pool in a barren, economically depressed Eastern European area. The son labors every day to keep his father believing that the pool is still a vital operation, while the old man's other son, a real-estate developer, schemes to tear down the place. As the brothers clash over the family business, they're also competing for the hand of a cute homeless girl who's squatting in a cubbyhole at the pool house.