Smile at Last review – photo-love-story style parable of a teen abandoned at a tough Soviet youth facility
With handheld camerawork, this unsentimental rite of passage film follows Mari, who tries to escape from a residential home in EstoniaThis intriguing 1985 film from Estonia uses nonprofessionals and handheld camerawork, which brings faces looming up to the screen. It is directed by Leida Laius and Arvo Iho and based on the YA novel Stepmother by Estonian author Silvia Rannamaa. The Estonian title Naerata Ometi is translated here as Smile at Last; perhaps it should be Give Us a Smile…
Source: www.theguardian.com