Same Same But Different

TIFF: Kate Winslet bared all in The Reader, but it was the young German actor David Kross who surprised audiences as her lover. Conveying an almost alarming sensitivity onscreen, Kross is able to play both innocence and the cruelty that sometimes lies beneath it. In Same Same but Different, he explores new levels of moral complexity in a story that feels both thoroughly contemporary and desperately romantic.

Kross plays Ben, a young man in search of adventure who flies off to Cambodia with his best friend. During the first days, it's the typical round of Third World getaway stuff. The pair check out tourist sites and cheap drugs, and even get the chance to fire a rocket launcher in a farmer's field. But then Ben meets Sreykeo (Apinya Sakuljaroensuk), a young Cambodian woman. She'd be a much safer bet if she were also typical. Instead, Sreykeo confounds the expected commercial exchange between a rich, callow Western man and a poor Cambodian woman. She is not simply a prostitute, but neither is she above asking Ben for money. In a series of beautifully shot encounters set to spare chamber music and melancholy Euro-pop, Ben and Sreykeo fall in love.

Here director Detlev Buck appears to be channelling Lost in Translation and In the Mood for Love, as this, too, is a story of illicit love drenched in minor chords and urban decay. The difference is that Sreykeo is HIV-positive. Establishing that fact in the first scene then shifting to show both its revelation and its consequences, Buck unsettles the ground under the viewer's feet. The stakes are high for both lovers, but not merely in obvious ways.

Both Kross and the Thai actress Sakuljaroensuk capture the discomfort and desire of two people drawn to each other across a chasm of difference. When Ben visits Sreykeo's home, he is too big for the cramped space. But when his vacation ends and his plane home beckons, he is suddenly small. And because this film is anything but typical, the story cannot end there.

--Cameron Bailey

Detlev Buck was born in Bad Segeberg, Germany. He has acted in numerous films and television programmes, and directed the cult short Time to Knock Off in 1984. His feature films include Rabbit Fever (91), No More Mr. Nice Guy (93), Jailbirds (96), Love Your Female Neighbour (98), Bundle of Joy (00), Tough Enough (06), Hands Off Mississippi (07) and Same Same but Different (09).
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Larry Richman: I just got out of the North American Premiere of Same Same But Different. Directed by Detlev Buck from a Ruth Toma script, this is a classic tale of star-crossed lovers featuring young David Kross and Apinya Sakuljaroensuk as Ben and Sreykeo, a German boy and Cambodian girl brought together by chance and destined to be together. Most won't recognize the name but will remember Kross' performance as Kate Winslet's young lover in the award-winning The Reader. An epic sweeping love story spanning two continents, Same Same But Different is Romeo and Juliet meets Dr. Zhivago meets Pretty Woman. Kross carries this film from opening to closing credits. Just as he startled the world in The Reader, the now 19-year-old enters leading man status here. Same Same But Different is a must-see for lovers of romance (and who doesn't), made all the more touching because it's based on a true story. The film is visually stunning with breathtaking cinematography, costume design, and art direction all beyond compare. This film will definitely be one of my Top Picks for 2009.

David Kross was present for a Q&A, and I was thrilled to finally tell him how much I enjoyed his performance in Krabat, one of my Top Picks from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. He was gracious, generous, and modest. I took pictures of the Q&A and with Kross afterward which I'll be posting soon.