Gads pirms kara

Europe in 1913. Peter, who prefers to be called Hans, works as a hotel porter in Riga. His colleague has joined an anarchist group that invades and subsequently marauds through the hotel. During the attack Peter encounters the mysterious revolutionary Alma, who invites him to Monte Verità in Switzerland. Shortly afterwards a bomb goes off: Peter, AKA Hans, falls under suspicion and is forced to flee. He again sees Alma, personally makes the acquaintance of Hitler, Stalin and Freud whilst on a journey across Europe that takes him to Bern, Prague, London and Vienna and otherwise gets lost in the turmoil of the year leading up to the war.

The beguiling black and white images are consciously reminiscent of the German silent film expressionism of the 1920s and have the effect of exaggerating reality. Director Dāvis Sīmanis captures a Europa that is, at once, becoming increasingly dreamlike and also disintegrating. In the midst of it all “Peter the Latvian” becomes a pawn of the radicals in a Europe full of hysteria.