sf indiefest

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 4:30PM

2/17/2007 7PM

Dionysius Zervos’ first feature is based on a true event. As recounted to him by a lifeguard, the story goes that a young mother and her child regularly came to the beach, until one day the child disappeared and the mother never saw her again.

Zervos uses this simple yet devastating narrative as the foundation for his fully realized, beautifully imagined debut. The breezy young mother of the film, Kaliope Harris (Izabelle Miko), leaves her daughter Anna with her parents for a weekend at the shore. The doting Mrs. Harris (Lesley Ann Warren) takes her grandchild to the beach, and on this sunny, innocuous day, she turns her eyes away from Anna for no more than a moment—and the child is gone.

The aftermath of an accident has provided the content for a number of strong recent films and “The Shore” captures the painful residue of a tragedy with a similar power. Mrs. Harris talks about Anna as if she might materialize at any moment while Mr. Harris (Ben Gazzara), a pillar of the community, relentlessly hectors the police and coast guard to find her.

Zervos concentrates on creating mood, tone and atmosphere, evoking a psychological state of mind and probing into an intimate, interior landscape of absence. In its understatement and its refusal to reach for undue dramatic moments, “The Shore” inspires incredibly powerful emotions. - Piers Handling, Toronto Film Festival