QUESTIONS OF COST

In many movies characters have to take decisions which will define their future. To use modern terminology, men and women have to… yes… bargain. Make all sorts of bargains. With friends, enemies. Chance acquaintances and close kin. Even with themselves.

Not all people know the intricacies of making a deal, but the situation forces those unprepared individuals to embark on adventures with unpredictable consequences. Tawny carriers hurrying along Parisian roads on their bicycles (Hello, Vittorio de Sica!) can’t help coming into contact with people with whom they’d better not associate. An Iranian dad must perform a mortally dangerous jump to collect money for his daughter’s operation. A Japanese and a Philippine girls are sisters-in-law who had no intention of meeting but are forced to get to know and understand each other.

And a young Bolivian shoe-shine boy will realize that an ideal plan to swindle a lonely old man which he designed together with his friend, is wrong. He will understand it and give it up when all the goals have seemingly been attained…

Sergey Lavrentiev