null.punkt (2014)

	Also Known As: Zero point
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Mihkel Ulk
	Actors: Märt Pius
	Country: EST
	Genre: Drama, Melodrama
	Conditions of visioning: 05.11.2015, CineStar1, NFDL2015, Estonian with English subtitles
Synopsis: After being denounced as an outcast in school and frightened away from home by his mother's developing schizophrenia, there is no other way out for Johannes but to start improving his life by reforming himself.
Review: I wanted to watch this movie as one of the few movies from Baltic countries in the Nordic Film Days of Lübeck 2015. For info, the Estonian title is really null punkt as it is written the same way as in German. The melodramatic evolution of the story is really well-done. It looks like a spiral and cumulation of circumstances making Johannes' life unbearable. And then he encouters the zero point. SPOILER And from then on it goes only upwards until the very happy end. The movie shows how courage of leading one's own life is making life more successful than by being lead by others.  The actors playing the family and the two buddies of Johannes are good. The school mates look as if they were playing in an American sitcom, lacking of authenticity. The work of directing and writer is noticeable in the way the different aspects of Johannes' life are driven and are meeting each other. Family, school, friends from the neighbourhood.  The camera is very fluid, even when Johannes is running in the streets or in the stairs of the buildings. The lights are also good.  If the movie would have ended before the SPOILER too happy end, I would have rated much better. I guess this was not the intention of the director, who is quite promising.
Rating: 7 /10