Alive! (2009)

Albania is not a country whose cinema gets much international attention, which makes a film like Alive! (2009) something of a curiosity for anyone working their way through world cinema. The country spent decades under one of Europe's most isolationist communist regimes, and its film industry, once tightly controlled by the state, has been slowly finding its feet in the post-communist era. By the late 2000s, a small number of Albanian filmmakers were beginning to attract modest co-production funding from Western Europe, and Alive! is a product of exactly that model, brought together by Albanian, French and Austrian production companies including Art Film, WilDart Film, and Agat Films & Cie. (It's the kind of international patchwork that often keeps small-nation cinema alive, even if it rarely results in a wide release.) If you're curious about what else has come out of Albania, I've also had a look at Hive (2021) and Castle Freak (2020), two very different films that share the same national origin.

The film is the work of Albanian director Artan Minarolli, and it draws on a subject that sits close to the heart of Albanian social history: the kanun, a centuries-old code of customary law that, among other things, governs the practice of blood feuds between families. The kanun's grip on rural Albanian communities persisted long after the fall of communism, and its consequences, particularly for young men caught between modern life and inherited obligation, have been documented by journalists and human rights organisations alike. That real-world weight gives Alive! its central premise: a young man named Koli, played by Nik Xhelilaj, returns from college to his rural home after his father's death, only to find himself bound by obligations he neither chose nor fully understands. The supporting cast includes Xhevdet Ferri, Bruno Shllaku, Niada Saliasi and Besart Kallaku, none of whom will be familiar names to most Western audiences, but who bring an unaffected, grounded quality to what is, at its core, a small and personal story. The film runs to ninety minutes, which is lean enough, though whether it earns that runtime is another question.

Minarolli's approach is quiet and observational rather than dramatic in any conventional sense, the kind of filmmaking that prioritises atmosphere and place over plot mechanics. The Albanian landscape, rural and rugged, is very much a presence in the film rather than a backdrop, and for viewers with an interest in social realism or in cinemas that rarely travel beyond their home country, there is genuine texture here. It sits in the same broad family of drama as some of the other less-seen films I've covered on this blog, including Sugar Cane Alley (1983) and Tiger Stripes (2023), films where cultural specificity is a large part of the point, even when the storytelling itself is uneven.

A-Z a movie from each country. #2 Albania 2nd film on way through 1 film from each country. Albania. I gotta say, this one had a weird ending. The poster alludes to it quite well but 99% of this film is about an old blood feud between families (which I assume is some sort of tribal thing called a Kunan they mention a couple times) After the death of his Father, the main character Koli has kind of inherited his Father's blood feud. That in itself is the premise of a decent movie, albeit one where the pace is really slow and there are plenty of random threads that appear that go nowhere... The end 1% is completely disjointed from the rest of the film. I found out later it's based on true events but even so... it feels kind of completely random to add that in. I would have probably given this a 3* were it not for the random end. It did detract from the film itself. The positives here are definitely some of the scenery, and the glimpse into life in rural Albania. Those parts were both beautiful, endearing and touching. Can't say I'd recommend this one to friends but it certainly wasn't a bad movie.

So there it is. A film I'm glad I watched, in the way you're glad you tried something unfamiliar on a menu even if it wasn't quite what you hoped for. The kanun and its human cost is the sort of subject that deserves a film made with complete confidence, and Alive! gets you most of the way there before losing its footing. For me, the rural Albanian setting alone made it worth ninety minutes of my time, and I won't pretend otherwise. But if you're going to recommend it to anyone, be honest with them about what they're in for. Sometimes "not a bad movie" is the most truthful thing you can say.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2009  | Watched: 2025-05-20

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Albania: Hive (2021)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)