In the remote, post-Soviet Armenia of Vodka Lemon, the collapse of Communism has meant the return of an old economic system. It's not capitalism, exactly. It's more like a form of the barter system or a debased feudalism, with the barely-haves taking what they can from the used-to-haves. Romen Avinian falls into the latter category. The retired widower lives off a military pension of $7 per month in a small house that he's begun selling off for parts. When the need calls, he even drags an antique wardrobe—a treasured wedding gift—into town to sell on the street. His ability to keep his dignity as he gets haggled down from a fraction of its value to a fraction of that fraction is as much a function of necessity as a sign of inner strength.
But Avinian does find some relief from the misery, mostly through daily trips to the cemetery to visit his wife's grave. There, he crosses paths with a vibrant widow (Lala Sarkissian) who can't afford to pay her bus-fare tab. They finally talk when he makes a sacrifice and pays it for her. In this part of Armenia, this qualifies as a meet-cute. Director Hiner Saleem plays it as such, too, and though the contrast between the sad world he visits and his film's comic approach (and its occasional side-trips into outright slapstick) becomes jarring at times, the contrast suits the material. Played straight, it would be a long slosh in a pool of misery. Played with the right amount of irony, it cuts closer to the absurdity at the situation's heart.
Saleem doesn't always get the balance right, and he reveals a greater gift for crafting individual scenes than for tying them into a cohesive film. But the memorable moments stick in the mind, as does the corner of the world he visits, a place where an old trailer selling bottles of booze qualifies as a hot spot, and everything's for sale. Because when there's no food on the table, value becomes a relative concept. Avinian begins Vodka Lemon with little and ends it with less—as the story progresses, his house comes to look more like a move-in special than an old family home. It's the perfect image for a dark-humored film about devastation, which makes Vodka Lemon's final rush into comedy in the truest sense all the more refreshing. Even in the wasteland, there might be humor other than the gallows kind.