New York Post

CHILLED ‘VODKA’ IN HIGH SPIRITS
By V.A. MUSETTO
Rating: *** 1/2
October 8, 2004
VODKA LEMON

Romance in the snow.

In Armenian, Russian and Kurdish, with English subitles. Running time: 88
min utes. Not rated (brief violence). At the Lincoln Plaza and the Cinema
Village.

‘WE’RE in deep sh – – here,” Hamo, a 60-ish gentleman with a white beard and
a full head of matching hair, tells his dead wife during one of his daily
visits to her grave.

Indeed, life is tough for Hamo and his neighbors in a godforsaken,
snow-blanketed village in post-Soviet Armenia.

Hamo receives a tiny pension and waits for a letter from his son in France
to arrive with money in it. Letters arrive, but there is no money.

To keep going, Hamo (Romen Avinian) sells his few possessions, even his old
army uniform.

It is during one of his cemetery visits that Hamo first sees Nina (Lala
Sarkissian), a widow who works in a liquor store called Vodka Lemon and is a
decade or so younger than he.

Iraqi-Kurdish director-writer Hiner Saleem watches from afar as a romance
ever so slowly builds between the two lonely souls.

He’s in no hurry to tell the story, and viewers drawn in by the warm-hearted
tale and charmingly eccentric characters will be in no hurry for the closing
credits.