A woman checks into a hotel in Ostende, a small Argentinian coastal
town, for a weeklong stay - the grand prize of a quizshow her boyfriend,
who'll only come later, has won. Once there, the woman finds there is not
all that much to do: The seas doesn't look too inviting, the weather seems
to be constantly changing, and the toaster of the snackbar is broken.
Well, at least the waiter at the snackbar tries to entertain her trying to
pitch her his idea for a movie - for which he has only ever thought up the
first scene though. At night, the woman is kept awake by the sound of
passionate sex, but the next day shew seems to have the breakfast room for
herself. Then a young woman comes in, reads a sheet of paper, starts to
cry, scrunches the paper up, throws it away and leaves. Our heroine is
overcome with curiosity, but before she can make herself pick up the
paper, an old man whom she has seen with the girl before comes in,
immediately starts talking to her about seagulls, but the woman can't
shake the feeling the conversation is really about something completely
else. The old man leaves again, and the woman is about to pick up the
scrunched up sheet ... when he returns to pick it up and put it in his
pocket as if it was his. The whole little scene has sparked interest in
our heroine, and she starts following the old man around, to find him not
only with the one girl but another as well, both of whom seem to be his
girlfriends of sorts. Then one day, the woman sees the old man beating one
of the girls. Our heroine tries to follow the both of them, but loses
them. The woman's boyfriend finally arrives. She tells him about the old
man and the two girls, but he shows little interest. Then she finds out
that one of the old man's girls has moved into the room next to them,
while the old man is still in the room across the court. That night, the
woman witnesses light signals coming from the old man's room. The next
morning: The woman tries to piece together the puzzle of all the clues she
has come up with and comes to the conclusion she has prevented a
kidnapping - not that her boyfriend believes any of this, though ... Later
that day, the two of them leave Ostende, their vacation being over ... Epilogue:
The old man meets with the two girls, and obviously, there hasn't been a
kidnapping attempt, ever. Eventually, the three of them get into an
argument though, and the two girls leave ... upon which he shoots them
dead. Basically, Ostende is a film about nothing - and
don't get me wrong, this is meant as a compliment. Fact is, apart from the
very last scene, which is more of a punchline, nothing is really happening
during the film, the whole mystery plot is only made up by the
protagonist, and all the sequences that could belong to a thriller plot do
so only by interpretation. That's not to say though that Ostende is
boring or pretends to be what it isn't, actually it's full of subtle
humour, irony, and even suspense, created by the most common things. And
the film's rather slow pacing works perfectly in tune with its atmosphere. Recommended,
actually.
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