THE WAITING ROOM

A man steers his car down the road along the Croatian coast – but in reality the vehicle is bolted down, the landscape is merely a projected background and the family members at his side are all just actors. THE WAITING ROOM plays with levels of reality, creating illusions and then destroying them in the next minute. Who is this man who’s always in motion but can’t seem to actually get anywhere in the end? Who are these people that appear and recede next to him like extras? What kind of world is this that seems to coalesce around the main character like a revolving series of sets? Slowly a picture of the aging actor Jasmin starts to emerge, one of a man paralysed by grief over the loss of his homeland, his theatre career in former Yugoslavia and the idyllic family that never existed. He moves in a construct composed of memories and illusions that have taken on a life of their own, all while earning his keep as a movie extra in his Canadian home in exile. With his physical presence, actor Jasmin Geljo, on whose memories the film is based, lends the images particular weight – his furrowed face attracts the glances of others and deflects them just as quickly. Just when we think we’ve figured out how to interpret his expression, the image disintegrates, someone yells “Cut!” and the scene is over. Jasmin doesn’t reveal his grief, but disguises it instead, by creating it in front of the camera like a role that he is merely playing.