27 Missing Kisses (2000)
A young woman's passion has a remarkable effect on a Russian village in this comedy-drama with fantasy elements. Sybill (Nino Kuchanidze) is a teenager who is sent to a small town in the country to spend the summer with her aunt. Despite her tender age, Sybill is ripe and sexually aware, and while the initial object of her attention is Alexander (Eugenji Sidichin), a widower in his early 40s, she instead pairs up with Mickey (Shalva Iashvili), Alexander's teenage son. Mickey quickly becomes infatuated with Sybill and is more than happy to indulge her fondness for outdoor lovemaking. Between Sybill's carefree, youthful sensuality and the appearance of Emmanuelle at the local movie house, suddenly love and lust are in bloom all over town.
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This is a beautiful movie in every way. It's too bad that Hollywood can't produce something like this once in awhile. While Sibylla is misunderstood by everyone around her, the audience understands only too well that sometimes we can't explain our feelings. Sometimes we can't just automatically conform. In fact, sometimes the most interesting people are people like Sibylla who is beautiful self from beginning to end. She follows her heart no matter how illogical or imprudent those feelings might be... not matter the cost. Nutsa Kukhianidze is spectacular. Great to look at. Fun to spend two hours with. A very convincing young rebel.
Sibylla comes to spend her vacations by her aunt, this will be a very special summer for a teenager that knows this pretty and rebel girl able to awake the senses of a whole community in a Georgian town. The movie is very poetic and full of funny (sometime surreal) situations, it starts with the total eclipse of sun and with a promise. Mikey asks to Sibylla to kiss her and she agrees telling to the boy she will give him 100 kisses before the end of the summer. Mikey is very in love with Sibylla and he would like to spend every minute of the short season in her company, but for the girl Mikey is not as fascinating as his father Alex.
27 Missing Kisses shows that Europeans are still capable of producing strong little pictures about life in general as lived by ordinary people . Much of the charm of the film lies in the recognition of man's ability of making a complete fool of himself. The natural beauty of the leading character, Sibylla, her disarming honesty in her doomed love for an older man makes one wonder at the forced and unnaturally contrived lives we all lead. Never preachy or heavy-handed, sentimental nor crude, but always utterly believable, its straightforwardness is deceiving. The village in which most of the action takes place is filled with its fair share of funnily sketched characters. Entertaining as they are, they only serve as distractions from what lies beneath.The clever and convincing script, the sober but beautiful photography and the natural performances combined with the assured direction make this German/Georgian co-production a little gem of which any big name director would have been proud. I'm happy to say they still make them this way.
This movie is very lively and poetic. Based around a romantic triangle between two teenagers and the boy's father, the movie plunges you in the ambiance of a small georgian village. Combining moments of comedy and tragedy, it succeeds in being entertaining.