Jaunie laiki skérsielá

In his film Crossroad Street from 1988, Tálivaldis Margévics followed the daily lives of the inhabitants of an 800-metre long street in the suburbs of Riga, the Latvian capital. Ten years later, he went back to see what had become of these people. A slightly ironical voice-over tells us about their experiences and the latest gossip: the orphan girl Daiga now has a family to take care of, but rumour has it that her friend is having a mistress on the sly. Toliks is still suffering from the mysterious disease he contracted in Siberia, and as of old the somewhat overbearing Olga makes pots full of horseradish juice every day. Liquor is sold through a sawed-out hole in a fence. A new element is the train that has been dumped in the middle of the street. Every day, the people have to crawl underneath it to get to the store. The talk of the day concerns the crows, that for unclear reasons attack everybody who passes by. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Latvia became a little more prosperous, which has not done the local casino owner any harm. Unlike the documentary filmmaker, he does have an explicit opinion about the sober life of the people living on Crossroad Street: ‘They dig in the earth a little, everybody has something to do, but they should set themselves higher goals.‘ The director thinks that Crossroad Street is rather the palm of Latvia, where you can discover the life lines and destination of the entire country. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)