Of an Age

Melbourne, 1999. Kol, the son of a Serbian immigrant family, spends hours in a car with Adam, his dance partner's older brother, on the morning of a competition. What begins between the two young men that day ends the next: Adam is leaving for Argentina. The film then brings them back together eleven years later. It is not interested in a love story. It is interested in timing: the meeting happens on the wrong day, and the film says there is no making that up. The reunion in the second part only sharpens it. The form leans on close-ups and near real time; the first section takes place almost entirely within one day and in tight spaces, with the camera never leaving faces. It is Goran Stolevski's second feature. He had broken through with the folk horror of You Won't Be Alone; this is something else entirely, personal and built on immigrant experience. Elias Anton plays Kol and Thom Green plays Adam. Who it is for: viewers who like conversation-driven romantic drama and stories of immigrant youth. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a happy ending. The film deliberately cools in its second half and gives nobody a second chance.