11 minut (2015)

English title: 11 Minutes

Several characters' lives are depicted during the same 11-second period. The longest-lasting plotline is that of an actress who goes to an audition with a director, and his jealous husband who follows her. Others include a hot dog vendor, a couple in a hotel room, a thief, a sketch artist, a motorcycle courier, a young woman with a dog, some nuns, a woman in labor, a team of paramedics, and maybe others I forget.

It has a type of film structure which was somewhat in fashion in the nineties and early aughts, that of multiples plots which intersect. Critics correctly pointed out the structural similarity with a related genre, that of the fatal synchronicity -- of the Fatal Destination franchise. Here, however, it's not done in a thriller style. There is no steadily mounting tension; instead, there is an ominous feel which derives from the stories themselves and is accentuated by a celestial phenomenon which goes unexplained. It is not a particularly remarkable movie, but I found the situations and dialogue mildly interesting. I still do not fathom why a character who is described by reviewers as a window cleaner uses a blowtorch to perform his job.

Rating: 50