Film Difficulty 3

To help you ease your way into our world, we have devised a the film difficulty ranking system to rate the difficulty of each film reviewed on our site. The easiest to watch films (the Rom-Coms and Superhero flicks that you watch anyway) will have a rating of 1. Foreign language films automatically add one point, as do black and white films, and films with strange and hard to follow plots. Welcome to Film Difficulty 3.

Film Difficulty Ranking 3: More of a challenge for those familiar with foreign films. Level 3 is like a mix between an intriguing European mime artist and your most interesting and demanding school teacher.

If you’ve mastered these films, move onto Film Difficulty Ranking 4.

131

Apples – AFI Fest 2020

The opening of Apples looks bleak. There aren’t any vibrant colors and not much light (as you can see from the shot above). The main character starts out in a dark apartment bashing his head against the wall, and walks out into an overcast day with dark clothing. Even the narrow aspect ratio restricts an open view of the world he exists in. Apples has all the hallmarks of a depressing movie. But the bleakness is countered by a lot of deadpan comedy which ultimately provides a great commentary on modern day Instagram culture.

Not long after the main character walks out his apartment, he falls asleep on a bus and wakes up without his memory. What’s strange is that he doesn’t seem too startled or surprised that his memory is gone. It’s just another thing to happen to him that day. As a result it doesn’t feel like a big deal to us either. We also don’t know what he’s lost as his character hasn’t been established at this point. We don’t know how he feels, what he’s thinking, or if he has a family or job. We don’t even know his name.

The deadpan humor kicks off in the hospital ward. It’s where he discovers his love for apples, and where he’s put through multiple memory tests. One highlight was watching him take a music identification test. The ‘I’ve got this one in the bag’ certainty in his eyes as he pairs Jingle Bells to a completely unrelated flashcard image is hilarious. In the hospital he finds a lot of other people like him as the victims of the memory loss epidemic increases. For those who aren’t claimed by family members, the doctors offer a program to help them create a new life.

Each patient on the program is given a Polaroid camera and scrapbook (the film exists in a world without internet and mobile phones). They’re then given a bunch of tasks to do which they have to capture on camera as proof of completion. Most of the tasks are fairly ordinary life experiences like riding a bike, but they get more exceptional as the film progresses. Our protagonist goes about it fairly robotically – capturing everything he needs to without appearing to enjoy the journey. He’s left with a document which appears to show a much more interesting life than he actually leads and had led (before the amnesia). It’s a critique of the Instagram culture which superficially picks out the very best life pictures vs. the actual boring lives we live outside of the camera lens. As despite the great collection of photos our unnamed protagonist has put together, his character still doesn’t exist. He’s still nameless, characterless, and emotionless.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

132

Should the Wind Drop – AFI Fest 2020

Should the Wind Drop is a timely cinematic introduction to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. It’s a country that has suffered genocide and unending land disputes, which recently flared up with neighboring Azerbaijan (the country most of the international community places it within).

We enter the country with Alain, an airport inspector traveling from France. He, like most of us, arrives without much knowledge of the country’s history. He’s here to inspect the regional airport which has been shut down since the outbreak of war in the 1990’s. If it passes all his tests, it can be officially opened and both establish the country’s existence globally, and open it up for it’s residents.

We follow Alain’s transformation from an auditor “just doing his job” to a sympathizer of the independence cause. During his time there he meets a good portion of the population and slowly opens up to their way of life. He grows to sympathize with the optimistic airport operator, the TV host, and his taxi driver shown in his more open conversation with them. His connection to Nagorno-Karabakh peaks with a jovial drinking session with the local soldiers. It’s the one time he seems to stray from the commitment to his job and truly mix with the locals. His transformation serves us (the audience), as like him, we have probably come to this movie with little prior knowledge of the country and people. Whilst it seems foreign at first, we, like him, end the film with a connection to the place and it’s characters through his experiences.

As a result of it’s significance to the locals, the airport has become a symbol of pride and hope. It has the potential to free them from their landlocked prison and regional disputes and become recognized internationally. It also literally fuels the village as one little boy walks by the airport every day to fill up his water bottles to sell in the village. Everyone in the town is seen drinking his ‘magic water’. It symbolizes their faith in the airport and the modern world it will bring.

As a symbol of recognition, the movie itself is just like the airport. In being made and celebrated at international film festivals, it puts Nagorno-Karabakh on the map, finishing what the airport started.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

133

Notturno – AFI Fest 2020

Notturno is a beautifully shot documentary. It’s clear that each shot has been carefully set up and framed. For example, the shots of the first protagonist of the documentary, a man traveling to his hidden canoe to go hunting, are incredibly well lit in low light. He paddles out into the darkness with the reds of the night sky burning in the background. And that’s right after the shots of him on his motorbike riding to the lake, with oil rigs spurting flames behind him. This film is full of incredible images of the borderlands between Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon.

However, because it’s so well shot, the documentary kind of feels a bit staged. Everything shot feels like it has been planned. It feels like the director, Gianfranco Rosi, has asked the people he’s shooting to wait for him to set up the camera before they move around, as his camera captures them so perfectly from a distance. He seems to know where they’re going. So even if it’s not that obvious, you can feel the faint presence of the director slightly disrupting their lives which makes Notturno feel less natural.

Because you can feel the director’s gaze, Notturno also feels a bit exploitative at times. The shots of poverty and buildings in ruin are what western eyes expect to see from the war torn Middle East. These images are complemented by a few displays of trauma from mothers who’ve lost their children and children who have lost their mothers. They’re opportunities to tug on the heartstrings of western audiences and emphasize the tragic cycle of war the region is stuck in. But these images don’t always feel organic. The scene with the children running through their memories feels more like the rehearsals for a local stage show that appear in the movie. Both are designed and practiced to illicit an emotional response.

That being said, the film does offer something western audiences might not expect to see: the empty silence of the borderlands. Instead of ISIS and armies, the majority of the shots feature vast open spaces explored by a few local hunters. Soldiers watch the landscape, but nothing happens. There are of course the signs of war, but no evidence of it existing in the present. As a result, it feels a bit like the photographer’s quest to shoot the Franco-Mexican War in Towards the Battle and Robert Fisk’s search for the Middle Eastern front lines in This is Not A Movie. Rosi has arrived in a war torn region to perhaps shoot the war, but the war has disappeared. Instead he finds an empty land waking up to be interpreted by his own gaze.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

134

Rival (Rivale) – AFI Fest 2020

Rival starts with death. There’s the first opening flash forward featuring a shot of Roma, a approximately 9 year old boy, grabbing a gun in answer to someone knocking at the door. Then there’s the second opening with Roman burying a dead bird before attending an older relative’s funeral. It’s an ominous sign of things to come. It’s clear Rival is not going to be an upbeat family drama.

Before there’s time to grieve, Roman is bundled into the back of a van and taken to Germany to live with his mother. She’s been in Germany taking care of an elderly woman (who has recently passed away) as an undocumented worker. Problem for Roman is that the older woman’s widow is survived by her partner Gert, an old German man that has fallen in love with his mum. Roman has to compete with Gert for his mother’s love.

The relationships between Roman and his Mum, and Roman and Gert are pretty all of nothing. They’re either hyper energetically playful: chasing each other around the house laughing and pulling faces, or they’re shouting and roaring at each other. It reminded me a bit of the similarly high energy relationship between the mother and son in Xavier Dolan’s Mommy. It just feels like something is going to go badly wrong, like when Roman tries to poison Gert by spiking his afternoon tea.

Their uneasy relationships are complemented by the elements of the horror genre that are intertwined into the images. There’s Gert’s sinister eyebrows (that are a bit like Nosferatu’s Dracula) and the shots of him being injected with insulin. Then there’s the moving door handle at night when Roman is sleeping with his mum (a door which is later locked to subdue Roman). The eerie music, which features plenty of high piano notes, underscores the influence of horror on Rival, positioning Gert as the pretty unpredictable and untrustworthy villain.

If you’re looking for a bleak family drama which promises many things that go horribly wrong, check out Rival. You’re guaranteed to find something depressingly shocking.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

135

Dadli (Antigua & Barbuda) – A Brief Immersion into Hidden Island Life

Dadli Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Dadli features a boy’s narrative over a montage of shots of Antiguan life. It’s a brief but incredibly immersive 15 minutes in Antigua & Barbuda that any fans of Jonas Mekas and Khalil Joseph should love.

From: Antigua & Barbuda, North America
Watch: Vimeo, IMDb
Next: Process, Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, Right Near the Beach

Dadli – The Breakdown

Dadli is short, but it doesn’t need time to build its beautifully immersive aesthetic. The quick editing and dulled diegetic sound (the music and narrative are the focus in this film) don’t allow you to think of anything else apart from the images and atmospheric sounds you are hearing, whilst the natural home video style texture of the film – which is taken to the next level with the cinematography – and the mid to close range shots draw you in further. This combination of techniques makes it feel both immersive and intimate – as if you are experiencing a Fast-Forwarded snippet of life on the island. The texture of the film even sweats the close-mugginess of the night, the warm melancholy of the sunsets, and laid back vibrancy of daytime. It feels like you’re there. Whilst other movies capture island life over the course of a feature film, Dadli manages to do it in a compact 15 minutes.

The young boy’s narrative is what separates the immersive style of Dadli from Khalil Joseph’s art-films and music videos. He’s a kid playing an adult – with no role models or parents. He talks of murder, drugs, and poverty, giving us an ‘underground tour’ of the island. However, his narrative never feels completely believable, which makes the film feel like it could be a twisted fantasy or exaggerated memory (of the brief adult narration) instead of a harsh reality. The fleeting shots of the montage helps to blur the distinction between fantasy and reality, turning it into an even more trance-like, immersive experience.

If you’re a fan of movies that use sound and editing to immerse viewers into an environment, you should watch Dadli. It creates a feeling of life on Antigua that you probably wouldn’t experience as a tourist or visitor.

What to Watch Next

For more immersive films that rely on sound, check out Khalil Joseph’s catalogue of music films such as Process (featuring Sampha) and Good Kid m.A.A.d City (featuring Kendrick Lamar). Both, like Dadli create a strong sense of place through the editing and sound of their movies.

You could also try the films of Jonas Mekas, such as Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania and Lost, Lost, Lost. These films use home-video style footage and quick editing to immerse viewers into the narrators stories.

Or for more immersive editing from the Caribbean, try Jamaica’s Right Near the Beach.