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If you liked the last movie featured by the International Film Showcase (IFS) in Orinda, Noodle, you will also delight in this month's presentation, Three Quarter Moon. "They are both wonderful movies where the relationships between people are so great," said IFS co-founder Efi Lubner.
Hartmut Mackowiak is overwrought: his wife of more than 30 years is leaving him for another man. The aging taxi driver mulls over his resentment, and his anger is transferred to the clients who step into his taxi. Of particular disdain to him are young people and foreigners. When he discovers in his taxi a six-year-old Turkish girl, Hayat, who is completely lost and doesn't speak a word of German, he will do anything he can to try to get rid of her. But their meeting ultimately gives new life to the lonely and disillusioned man.
The theme of this movie is a cross between Noodle, in which an adult gains purpose in her loveless life by caring for a vulnerable foreign child, and the very uplifting and optimistic theme that it's never too late to change one's life, as depicted in the Swiss film Late Bloomers that was shown by IFS in August. Three Quarter Moon is definitely a feel-good movie, even with some serious issues touched upon along the way.
Mercan Turkoglu (Hayat) is a delight to watch. While she and the old taxi driver have both lost important emotional bonds at the outset, the movie portrays the deepening of their relationship, beginning with a scared little girl clinging to a grumpy old man and shifting gradually as the two friends find a way into each others' hearts.
The idea of a cantankerous man turned caretaker to a precocious and confused child is not a new idea in cinema, but there is additional depth to Three Quarter Moon, its concept created by German director Christian Zubert and his Turkish wife Ipek. The dimension of communality, not only between young and old, but also between people from different cultures is well done.
Three Quarter Moon opens in Orinda on November 16 for one week. For tickets and more information, visit lamorindatheatres.com/
index_orinda.asp.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA