A TRIP (2011) is an experimental road movie about three best friends (Andrej, Gregor and Ziva) who reunite after a long time apart to take a road trip together through their native Slovenia. They have known each other for years and yet, during their trip, find out that none of them really knows each other. Since leaving school, each of them has gone their separate ways, far away from the idealism of youth to experience life's difficult and often iniquitous blows. While Andrej has had live in old world Solvenia as a homosexual, oftentimes discriminated against even to the point of abuse, Gregor has lived through war as a soldier and has partaken in the death of war's innocent collateral damage. Their beautiful female friend, Ziva, seems to have it all going for her on the outside- she's attractive, smart, lovable and Gregor clearly has a repressed passion for her- but there is something beneath the surface that she has never revealed to either of them, a dark secret that begins boiling to the surface the longer she suppresses it.
In the beginning of the trip, it is all laughs and excitement, but the further they go out on the road, the further they go into themselves and reveal the darker, more interior trip within. A TRIP is a tender, yet agonizing coming-of-age drama about friendship, love and finding oneself; the trying and heartbreaking journey we must all take to merit all three.
written by Vanessa McMahon, November 22, 2011
