In her debut feature, Ink Wash [+lee también:
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This first act is the most talkative in Ink Wash, which mostly takes place in a vast hotel undergoing renovations and located in the heart of the Romanian forest. Before she moves out of the country for good, Lena is commissioned to paint murals in this brutalist building, under the new management of a Norwegian man around her age called Asger (Kenneth M Christensen), working for German investors. In this empty space and its beautiful surrounding woods, Lena has a lot of time to think, and Tsorakidis lets her camera roll at length on her protagonist simply exploring her environment or painting. Inevitably, however, the few other people on the premises start having an impact on Lena, albeit one that the filmmaker is overly cautious to present to us. The woman first bonds with Roni (Radouan Leflahi), a young Syrian refugee who becomes her assistant and tells her about his difficult life so far as well as his uncertain future – much more so than her own, but the director doesn’t overstate this point, instead letting the audience come to their own understanding. Then, it is Asger who makes Lena wonder what she wants out of romance. The country’s rampant corruption comes into play as well, and Lena isn’t sure any more whether leaving the country will help her. While all of the questions plaguing the painter are interesting, Tsorakidis does little more than hint at them, and with a degree of restraint and slowness that undermine their power. Instead of a slow-build to some kind of understanding, acceptance, transcendence or even rejection (a character doesn’t need to have all the answers), we are offered a frustratingly lethargic and opaque look at a woman at a crossroads, overwhelmed by all the contradictions of modern life, seen through the eyes of a filmmaker who seems too hesitant herself to say anything about them. While the ideas it raises are worth exploring, Ink Wash is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

Ink Wash is a Romanian-Greek-Danish co-production, and was staged by Mandragora, Bad Crowd and Angel Films. Its international sales are handled by France’s Shellac.