Vjerujem u andele/I Believe in Angels by the Croatian director Niksa Svilicic is a lighthearted romantic comedy examining a small island community and its inhabitants.  Local postman Sime (Vedran Mlikota) falls for the mysterious dark-haired new girl in town, Dea (Dolores Lambasa).  After an awkward attempt to court her, notwithstanding the attention from all the other single men in town, he finally wins her hand and the two ultimately get married and have a baby.

Thought the plot is rather mundane the film survives off of the appeal of the cast and the characterizations and the easy-going tone.  Svilicic demonstrates a capable hand with the material and offers a simple, entertaining film.  Croatia has delivered a proficient showing at this festival, the quality of their cinema made evident and lending proof that there are some bright futures ahead of their talented directors.

Die koreanische Hochzeitstruhe/The Korean Wedding Chest by the German director Ulrike Ottinger is an observational documentary described as a “modern ethnographic fairy tale” which depicts life in South Korea, particularly the unique cultural qualities of their traditional weddings.  The film is structured within a series of chapter headings that describe a certain location or service offered in relation to the weddings.  Intermittent, poetic voice-over narration in English and other languages dot the soundtrack at odd intervals.  As described at one point in the film, the idea is to “find the old in the new, and the new in the old” in this cinematic journey.

Though this is a beautiful film to look at, full of opulent colors and sights and pure visual storytelling, it quickly becomes tedious.  A majority of the film is bereft of anything other than nondescript natural sound, so that we receive no solid information on the unique and difficult to decipher rituals we witness.  The result is that the viewer feels left out in the cold, a passive observer where more is lost in translation than revealed.  As such, this film highlights one of the shortcomings of the observational mode of the documentary form.  Exposition would have been greatly appreciated to contextualize the cultural wonders that lie within The Korean Wedding Chest.