Admission: $2.50
The crashing waters and harsh grey landscapes of a Baltic seashore set the mood for this turn-of-the-century tale, which in its poetic spirit draws on the style of early Scandinavian directors and in fact is based on a Danish novel (Romance of the Dunes) transported to a Lithuanian setting. A father and his two grown sons, all fishermen, live together in this isolated setting, struggling daily against nature and the even more formidable maneuverings of loan sharks in the nearby village to whom they are in debt. A woman whose fisherman husband has just washed ashore enters their home, dazed. She soon becomes the center of their lives: marrying first the eldest son and, when he disappears, the younger, she has children by both, and is widowed by both. In the course of this strange romance a complex humanity unfolds in profound contrast to the raw tensions of nature. With the commanding screen presence of Lithuanian actress Yurate Onaitite and an effectively spare editing style, A Woman and Her Four Men achieves its powerful understatement.