tlavideo.com

Review

Located in the "Ruthenian Bermuda Triangle" (the land between Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine) is Europe's only Pop Art Museum. Stanislaw Mucha's lighthearted documentary traces the roots of America's Pop icon Andy Warhol, whose family heritage can be traced to the town of Medzilaborce and the neighboring village of Miková. His clan have always lived here, and they always will. Andrijku, alias Andy, inspires the imagination of his surviving relatives. Everyone has their own vision of the region's most famous son. Nobody knew him, but everybody talks about him. Beneath the modest surface, the radical changes taking place have been devastating. So much has been lost that nobody really cares about lost art. Warhol, the famous hometown boy, sent original works of art to his unsuspecting relatives back home, but they made them into toy trumpets for their children. A flood ruined some of his works. With a gentle humanistic touch, the film swings from the art of Warhol to his relatives – all characters in their own right – and their "art" of coming to grips with life despite poverty and hopelessness, people with a healthy supply of apathy and a cheerful take-it-easy attitude towards life. Most memorable is Warhol's quite funny 90-year-old aunt.

Winner, 2001 German Film Critics Prize for Best Documentary Film and the Audience Prize at the 2001 Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival. "Absolut Warhola will have its part in film history as most curious and thoughtful documentary on pop art." --Der Spiegel (Slovak & Ruthenian with English subtitles)

Ira Kormannshaus