Everyone in the tiny riverside town in the gloomy Croatian gay drama Sandbag Dam spends the movie doggedly preparing for a potentially devastating flood that never comes.
Radio weather reports warn of torrential rains, as villagers go about their daily lives. At the same time, every able-bodied man and boy is called into action on their off-time to haul sandbags to the river’s banks, building a wall to protect the town from impending disaster.
The river waters rise and rage, yet, during the film’s days-long window into this provincial burg, no flooding tips close to or over the sandbag dam. The threat of a deluge remains merely a pregnant metaphor for the flood of urges and emotions the movie’s teen protagonist Marko (Lav Novosel) is fighting to keep at bay.
Marko is building his own walls, you see, living behind the façade of a popular high school senior jock, with pretty girlfriend Petra (Franka Mikolaci) on his arm, and a rowdy crew of bros to horse around with while chanting about chasing pussy.
On top of all that, he’s a sensitive and loving companion to his younger brother with Down’s Syndrome, Fićo (Leon Grgić), and also a dutiful son planning to follow in the footsteps of his auto mechanic father, Franjo (Filip Šovagović). Marko’s a small-town golden boy — but his gleaming façade cracks wide open with the sudden return to town of Slaven (Andrija Žunac).
Directed by Čejen Černić Čanak from an original screenplay by acclaimed Croatian playwright Tomislav Zajec, the movie doesn’t approach Marko and Slaven’s reunion as a typical gay love story. Several elements are familiar, like Marko’s sternly suspecting mother Vanča (Tanja Smoje), and the slow, slow edging towards either guy acting on his true feelings.
But this isn’t a will-they-or-won’t-they situation. It becomes clear early on they already have, although the film takes its time revealing what exactly went down and how it might have led to Slaven — a year or two older, apparently — leaving town.
Now living in Berlin, he’s back home for the funeral of his father, and his presence is making people tense. Shot primarily in intimate handheld style, Sandbag Dam nails the air of uncomfortable aftermath that envelops Marko, Slaven, and everyone around them who knows they once had a thing.
The script and performances give little color to whatever that thing was, or is, though. Novosel capably balances Marko’s lightness and intensity opposite Žunac’s more introverted Slaven, but the pair’s chemistry does not speak of a smoldering desire or forbidden love that won’t be denied.
Dialogue indicates Marko and Slaven’s shared history and trauma, yet their connection onscreen does not translate to heartfelt romance. Rather, they seem like just the two gay guys in a tiny village who inevitably gravitated to one another before one or both could get out to a bigger, more queer-friendly city.
That might be what the filmmakers intended to convey. If Marko and Slaven are meant to evoke some great thwarted love, then the film falls short. The movie does succeed at reminding how pockets of homophobia trap innocent kids in towns big and small, from Europe to Asia to the USA.
A violent, and very personal anti-gay outburst late in the film feels overacted as drama, while also authentically representing the cruel intolerance that the LGBTQ community constantly are building dams to keep from flooding their lives.
Sandbag Dam (★★☆☆☆) is available to rent or own via digital on YouTube, Apple TV, and Google Play.
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The basic point-and-shoot camerawork does the script, co-written by Gustavo Cabaña, no favors, but the storytelling engages, along with the attractive cast. Cristian Mariani and Gastón Frías star as crossfit-crazed Jero and queer underground poet Tom, boyfriends who have become a gay "It couple" in Buenos Aires by sharing their unlikely romance on TikTok via The Tom and Jero Show.
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Sandbag Dam: Lav Novosel
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