Review #374 - White Palms (2008)
THE SCOOP
Director: Szabolcs Tajdu
Cast: Zoltán Miklós Hajdu, Kyle Shewfelt, Gheorghe Dinica
Plot: Miklos
Dongo is an Olympic gymnast whose career was ended by an injury. He comes to
Canada to begin a new life as a coach.
Genre: Drama / Sport
Genre: Drama / Sport
Awards: -
Runtime: 97min
Runtime: 97min
Rating: PG
for some coarse language.
IN
RETROSPECT (Spoilers: MILD)
Hungarian
director Szabolcs Tajdu’s new film White Palms has its moments of excellence in
a fairly uninteresting account of the life and career of a national gymnast
named Miklos Dongo. Dongo is trained under a brutal and authoritative coach
when he was very young. His life is changed when he suffers a serious non-sport
related injury.
He signs up to be a coach many years later and is forced to
train Kyle Manjak, a young Canadian gymnast whose talent is immense but is
lacking in discipline. Should he lash out on his student with the same
brutality shown by his coach? Or should he stick to a softer approach? In the
end, he decides to set an example by training rigorously together with Kyle and
qualify themselves for the World Gymnastics Competition.
Tajdu presents White Palms as two narrative threads of different timelines with the central focus on the character of Dongo. The present thread shows Dongo and Kyle together as coach and trainee respectively, and as opponents in competition. T he ‘flashback’ thread shows the anguish and misery suffered by Dongo when he was under his diabolical coach.
Tajdu presents White Palms as two narrative threads of different timelines with the central focus on the character of Dongo. The present thread shows Dongo and Kyle together as coach and trainee respectively, and as opponents in competition. T he ‘flashback’ thread shows the anguish and misery suffered by Dongo when he was under his diabolical coach.
Both threads run
back-and-forth with each other and it is difficult to see what the director
wants to achieve. Only crossing the hour mark does White Palms become
thematically clearer. The two threads eventually converge into a rousing climax
of slow-motion, balletic images that suggest the fickle psychological state of
Dongo, whose past comes back to haunt him.
White Palms concludes in an inferential manner that is slightly odd. More questions will be asked than answers given out by the time the end credits
roll. It tries to explain the psyche of Dongo by
further revealing his character’s actions. Some may see it as a proper closure
for the film’s lead character, but it is done half-heartedly that it loses most
of its impact.
White Palms is not quite consistent in terms of entertainment;
it is sometimes resonant, sometimes a yawn. Yet it emphasizes rather
successfully the importance of bonding in our lives and the courage to defend
our dignity whenever threatened.
GRADE: B-
(7/10 or 3 stars)
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