After a world premiere in Tribeca’s international narrative competition, Slovenian director-writer Sonja Prosenc brings her third feature, the social satire “Family Therapy,” to contend in Sarajevo. The filmmaker’s latest provides an absurdist spin on the premise of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Teorema,” as the arrival of a handsome, young stranger disrupts the dynamics of an unpleasant, nouveau riche Slovenian family. While a fun watch for most of its run, Prosenc allows the narrative to spin out of control, running on past several natural endings. As with the director’s previous films “The Tree” and “History of Love,” all shot by the talented Mitja Ličen (“Small Body”), the glorious cinematography, strong acting and breath-taking production design provide some compensation for the flaws of the screenplay.
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The striking opening moments, featuring a smoking car that bursts into flames along the side of a road and a family of three scrambling to safety, represent a bit of a bait-and-switch as the family pictured plays only a minor role in the film. Instead, the family of the title — the family Kralj (which translates as King, natch) — are in a fancy car speeding by the one in distress without stopping to help.
The strange, unsympathetic behavior of the Kraljs distresses 25-year-old French newcomer Julien (Aliocha Schneider), who has just arrived for an extended visit. He’s the son of family patriarch Aleks (Marko Mandić) from an earlier relationship. Clearly, father and son know little about each other, and the Kralj women, artist-gallerist wife Olivia (Katarina Stegnar) and unhappy ‘tween daughter Agata (Mila Bezjak) prove less than welcoming.
The Kralj home, where the greater part of the action takes place, is stunning. An architectural beauty of concrete and glass, situated at the edge of a forest, it is decorated in a modern, minimalist style, with smart house technology designed to keep the rest of the world out while allowing them to keep a wary eye on nearby nature.
Julien’s mere presence disturbs the family’s isolated, rigidly ordered existence. His empathy and kindness lead to literal and metaphorical fractures in their lives, but in Prosenc’s uneven screenplay these breakages don’t exactly lead to major revelations.
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As in the opening moments, the film boasts an over-abundance of small incidents that initially seem as if they might move the plot in an interesting direction, but ultimately prove to be mere distraction. This particularly applies to the short scenes involving the sexual tension that Julien’s presence seems to evoke in both mother and daughter. In contrast, the extended scene showing the pretentious artworld party where Serbian Ana Đurić-Konstrakta sings, an avant-garde performance takes place, and Aleks humiliates himself, make its point quickly but runs on too long.
Prosenc’s fine actors are committed, although in some cases they don’t have a lot to work with. Mandić brings a manic twinkle in his eye as the writer manqué with an unlikely obsession with outer space, while Stegnar’s haughty ice queen melts with concern over her frail daughter (who is her child in real-life). As the deus ex machina of the plot, French-Canadian performer Schneider is the least defined, but he makes Julien a decent human being willing to accept his role in this flawed family.
In a film in which ambience trumps plot, mention must be made of Tatjana Čanić Stanković’s glorious production design, the costumes by Gilda Venturini and Dubravka Skvrce, and, in particular, the striking score by the Slovene musical duo Primož Hladnik and Boris Benko who perform and record under the band name Silence.
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