Review of film: “You Can’t Escape Lithuania,” 2016, Stars Denisas Kolymyckis, Irina Lavrinovic, Adrian Escobar. Written & produced by Romas Zabarauskas. TLA Releasing. Violence, gore, male nudity.
Themes: Disillusionment, Disenfranchisement, Gay Life, Art Imitates Life
In helping social workers, street helpers, and counselors to work with and guide the homeless persons out there, we provide a wide variety of information, resources, and reminders. We also serve the homeless directly by visiting them—alone or in teams—and seeing what they want and need.
We interview the homeless, try to explain the world of the homeless to counselors, and attempt to show all of the disenfranchised persons out in our city and others. We try to explain how it feels to be treated badly. To be judged, to be cast aside, and to be insulted.
Films have the power to tell us of a wide range of people who are disappointed out there. Not just the homeless, but also sometimes wealthy and privileged persons who somehow “lose” something in life… including losing the possibility of “winning something.”
That is the case in this movie. Each of the three main characters lose important points in their plan to achieve and accomplish. Each of the three have their own personal image of who they want to be, no matter what they have to do to attain that image.
Many people out there have been let down by a life they never imagined they would be living. Becoming homeless, or becoming bankrupt, or not achieving any of the goals they set for themselves when young are all very disappointing realities.
This particular film has some shocking and unhappy scenes, indeed. The viewer might say out loud, “Why would they do that?” They might say this out loud several times.
In what looks like the most peaceful and wonderful rolling countryside of a romantic Lithuania, the three characters we are talking about prove that nature and beauty are not enough. Being disappointed makes a young person blind…
blind to the beauty of the hillside, blind to the beauty of the handsome Mexican boyfriend, blind to the endless opportunities of being young and rich, and blind to the excitement of becoming successful movie stars or producers.
The film maker even has a cool car – a red Dodge Charger – complete with V8 engine. It is a road film… in which they never really get anywhere…
Many reviews of the movie focus on the gore or the sex scenes (there are only one or two?) and then it is straight sex. Not too much gay interaction in the film. However, it is amazing the way people attack this movie and act as though it is too shocking. Since some scenes are shocking (not the sex scenes) some reviewers discard the value of the movie and seem to not understand it at all.
“Loss” is at the core of what is happening in the film. It is about losing things… losing hope, losing focus, losing notoriety, losing fame. Or at least it is about gaining fame, but for filming a world with scenes that are more than avant-garde.
So what happens in the movie? Well, to not give the entire story away, suffice to say that a young Lithuanian film maker and a great young female star and the film maker’s sexy Mexican boyfriend engage in an escape from their setting.
Of course, the threesome does not get very far. The viewer will have to decide if what goes on toward the end of the film makes sense. I maintain it does make sense, judging from where the three characters have started out. It is not a happy film.
It is a film about loss. There are some shocking scenes in the movie.
.
.
For further information on the film, TLA Releasing, and the producer, please see:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5281018/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/you_cant_escape_lithuania
TLA Releasing US | About/Contact
TLA Releasing US | You Can’t Escape Lithuania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romas_Zabarauskas
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/romas-zabarauskas-lgbtq-1235528695/#!
https://dmovies.org/2023/12/19/romas-zabarauskas-writer-interview/