Set in 1991 Estonia, a country newly celebrating its independence from the Soviet block, Ilkka Jarvilaturi's City Unplugged opens as the national treasury, a sum of $970 million in gold, returns home to capital city Tallinn from safekeeping in a Parisian bank. A story immediately perfect for a heist set-up, City Unplugged revels in criminal plans gone absurdly awry, smart social commentary on the communist to capitalist transition and a love story worth its weight in fable. Shot on both black-and-white and color stocks, it's a film visually chronicling both memory and progress, its story a joyous glimpse of what's been and what will be in a country now illuminated with change.

When unwitting, poverty-stricken electrician Toivo (Ivo Uukkivi) is pulled into an assignment to plunge the city into darkness, he's thrown in with a group of high-minded but relatively amateur criminals. Just days before the heist, demanding Mihhail (Enn Klooren) takes the reigns from the geriatric but still sharp Anton (Jüri Järvet) and lays out his plan to melt all of the gold into cigarette-sized portions. Packaged as cartons of smoke, the gold will then be smuggled out of the country.

Confused with the scheme, however, is the early entered labor of Toivo's pregnant wife Maria (Milena Gulbe), the determination of neighborhood tomboy Terje (Monika Mager) to bring Tovio home and the assistance of Officer Kallas (Villem Indrikson.) As Tovio struggles to black the city into chaos, inquisitive gangster Andres (Väino Laes) watching over his shoulder, he fights too with his selfish dedication to his wife and unborn child.

Taut and captivating, Paul Kolsby's screenplay moves from scenes of overblown silliness--Terje pushing Maria to the hospital in a wheelbarrow--to those of probing political discussion without falter. Dialogues between Toivo and Andres, particularly, harken to an almost literary exploration of individual philosophies, Uukkivi and Laes playing those moments with an offhandedness that prevents the film from straying too far away from its fun-loving roots.

Cinematographer Rein Kotov's compositions are at times so thoughtful and provocative that it's easy to get lost in the seemingly infinite contrasts he explores with the Russian black-and-white stock. Letting the light itself examine the film's messages, he boldly drops many frames into darkness, a Caravaggio chiaroscuro highlighting critical details. The black-and-white playfulness also lends the film's late arrival transition into color a sense of importance, its timing perfect to coincide with arcs in Kolsby's script.

Shot in 1993 and film festival lauded at that time, City Unplugged maintains itself now as both a superficially enjoyable ride and a beautiful love song to family and country, playing with elements of the fantastic and realistic and painting a portrait of Estonian hopefulness in what was then a new era.

IndiePix releases City Unplugged on DVD this week. For more information on the film visit the site here.