In recent years, the Baltic countries have shown an increasing interest in genre cinema, with titles such as the 2017 noir-influenced horror November or the recently premiered crime-thriller The Bog attracting audiences at international film festivals while also achieving local success. In this cinematic landscape comes Dice-Ching-O-Mat, from experienced Lithuanian director Kristijonas Vildžiūnas, which mixes sci-fi elements with a touching story about fatherhood, absence and reconciliation.
Vilis (Dainius Gavenonis) finds himself trapped in a mysterious, elevator-like cube, without many clues around him and guided only by vague instructions from a speaker. Through a series of games with strange dice and doors of different colors accompanied by numbers, he is forced to re-live specific moments from his family life in which he was absent. As he slowly understands the mechanisms of the game, he is confronted with his own actions that made him end up in this situation.
The film draws much of its suspense from confusion and an initial slowness, seemingly intending on making the audience as disoriented as the protagonist. It also incorporates philosophical ideas from I Ching, a classic Chinese divination text here treated as child’s play. Suspenseful music accompanies key moments, such as when Vilis takes his son to the airport to say a proper goodbye before he leaves to study abroad, while skillful lighting and sound within the cube – where every step and mechanical click feels tangible – contribute to an uncanny atmosphere. Yet the cube never feels as claustrophobic as it intends to. While still demonstrating meticulous set design and a great attention to detail in its construction, the space in itself fails to convey the sense of uneasiness, making parts of the film feel more exaggerated than unsettling.
For a film centered on a father trying to make up for lost time with his family, it gives too little attention to the people around him. Vilis’s wife and kids are there just to fulfill his reconciliation arc, with barely sketched personalities and personal struggles reduced to narrative devices working in the man’s favour. The film prioritizes the regret of the distant father over the experiences of those who had to live in his absence, and the emotional resolution becomes less convincing when the family is there just for his reckoning.
Vilis’s journey unfolds between idyllic landscapes and fraught family dynamics. The film moves between genres, starting as a sci-fi thriller and becoming a COVID drama before turning to romance tropes, all while maintaining its allegorical dimension. Dice-Chang-O-Mat pays tribute to well-loved elements of genre cinema and creates something formally ambitious and intriguing. This high-value production sometimes feels egocentric, but raises important questions about absence, judgement, and the desire to undo the past.
Director: Kristijonas Vildžiūnas
Writer: Kristijonas Vildžiūnas
Cast: Dainius Gavenonis, Vilma Raubaitė, Adelė Šuminskaitė, Vaidilė Juozaitė, Maksim Semionov
Running Time: 88 min
Country: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
Year: 2026
Rating: 3
Carla Pantilie
©FIPRESCI 2026