Lost in Karastan (2014)

	Also Known As: Welcome to Karastan
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Ben Hopkins
	Actors: Matthew Macfadyen, MyAnna Buring, Richard van Weyden
	Country: GB, GE, D, F
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 20.04.2015, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: Emil Forester (Macfadyen) is a filmmaker without ideas. As he is invited to a movie festival in Karastan, the president Abashiliev (van Weyden) asks him to make a movie in his country. And soon he falls in love with Chulpan (Buring), one assitent of the president.
Review: One dialogue of Chulpan is that she likes movies whenthe end is not clear and after the last image you say What! This is such a movie. A plot quite funny as Borat but without the heavy jokes under the belt. With actually almost not many jokes. For a comedy it makes it no so easy. But some ideas: the president looks like Hamid Karzai (ex-president of Afghanistan), many aspects of the classical dictature are shown (forcing people to work for the president, forcing people watching movies selected by the president, hiding that there is a rebellion in the national media). But I do not see the goal of this movie. Actually it looks more like a caricature, as if the movie had been indeed ordered by the president of Georgia with European funding and that the director tried to turn the movie into a farce. I do not know.  At the end even if Macfadyen tries his best, he might be the only actor who is not looking ridiculous. Whether this ridicule is searched is a good question. I found by casualty the official British poster making an almost serious movie and the German version rather ridiculous. Hmm...
Rating: 1 /10