Search - Eldorado on DVD

The best!

Susan Page | Baghdad, Iraq | 01/19/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is terrific. It was my favorite of the 2009 Palm Springs Film Festival. The director/lead actor and supporting cast are excellent -- it is hard to believe they are acting and not "being." I recommend this highly -- you will become completely immersed in this snapshot of the characters' lives."

Bleak but Heartfelt

Randy Buck | Brooklyn, NY USA | 03/11/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"ELDORADO is a road movie with a difference; the humor's subtle here, the heart's subterranean, the little lessons from life usually learned in this kind of mismatched buddy flick muted, at best. But writer/director/star Bouli Lanners knows what he's about, and his film gets under your skin and stays there for days. Haunting images, excellent acting, memorable soundtrack. ELDORADO richly deserved the honor it took at Cannes, and is highly recommended to all adventurous fans of foreign films."

Two strangers meet and bond...

CGScammell | Southern Arizona | 12/16/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A man drives home and discovers that his house is broken into by a scared drug addict looking for money to use for a busride back to his parents' home in the country. After seeing that the intruder is unarmed and scared, he lets him relax and volunteers to drive him back to his parents' home the next day. Why? Because the older man connects with the younger intruder. What keeps viewers watching is why.

Both men have secrets they are hiding. Both reveal them during the course of the movie.

The plot of this movie takes place "along the road," where they meet every imaginable flawed character: a car collector, a nudist, bikers and drug pushers. Is anyone normal? The older man's hair is never combed and he's wearing an oil-stained mechanic's overalls. The younger man never takes off his old cap.

Most of the conversation between the men takes place in the older man's (Yvan, played by Bouli Lanners who also directs this movie) car or at rest stops along the way. The dialogue is laconic. One senses that neither trusts the other. Elie, the younger man (played by Fabrice Adde), never gains the trust nor shows any comfort around Yvan. Yvan wants to, yet resists, to be the younger man's older brother. Characters develop as various scenes unfold and we see their reactions and learn of their intentions. In the end we are comforted that the end has come but it's an end without resolution.

Scenes of open fields, billowing clouds, wet country roads all add to the melancholy of this movie. The sountrack is in English and the car is a 1979 Chevloret station wagon. Eerieness and absurd suspense fill in the voids. At best this is a convincing man flick of two confused men looking for acceptance in a strange universe.

4+ stars.
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