THERE is a tendency for films such as the Kurdish Armenian Vodka Lemon to be dismissed as little more than a glorified ethnographic show-and-tell, a charming novelty in elk-fur peasant garb. The Story of the Weeping Camel from Mongolia suffered this fate at the hands of some British critics earlier this year. The problem is that the attitude directed towards films from small, poor, less newsworthy countries can be rather patronising.

In fact, films from countries without a developed film-making infrastructure can be far more interesting than those with a weighty cinema history that dictates how and how not to make films.

Vodka Lemon merrily makes its own narrative rules, layering colourfully surreal vignettes (there’s a definite flavour of Emir Kusterica’s anarchic Gypsy communities) and bittersweet Armenian in-jokes with a gentle, rather lovely autumn romance between a widowed former army officer and the woman he glimpses each day at the frost-bound cemetery.

The story is set in a Kurdish mountain village that is still suffering the transition from Soviet occupation to free market. Of course, a free market works only if you have money to buy things, and the villagers are forced to barter their remaining sticks of furniture and hope for an envelope filled with cash from the one village son who made it to the West. It’s not nearly as bleak as it sounds — there’s a specific kind of humour that thrives in the face of extreme privation and Vodka Lemon has it in spades.

Explore Film

• Film Reviews

• Trailers

• DVD

• London Film Festival

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010