Film Difficulty 4

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. You’re almost there, welcome to Film Difficulty 4.

Film Difficulty Ranking 4: These films demand full attention for long stretches of time, slowly draining your film stamina. However, these films can be incredibly rewarding, much like the feeling of finishing your last school exam after weeks/months of studying.

If you think you’re ready to take on some of the most challenging films from around the world, you’re almost there. Prepare yourself for films that are 7 hours long and others that demand every millisecond of your interpretative mind and a lot of post-film analysis. Then you’re ready to sit down and enjoy the heights of Film Difficulty Ranking 5.

Perfumed Nightmare (Philippines) – A Revolutionary Comedy

Perfumed Nightmare Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Honestly, I was a bit confused at the start of Perfumed Nightmare as the tone seemed a bit off. The film was made in 1977, but the black and white footage looks even older, so I was surprised to have the fourth wall broken a few times by the main character, Kidlat, after he pulls an increasingly larger toy truck over a bridge. The genre is also deliberately hard to pin down. It gives off the appearance of a stylish, amusing ethnographical film set in rural Philippines to disguise its strong revolutionary undertones. Don’t let anything put you off from watching this movie though as it’s a brilliantly unique and clever contribution to the Third Cinema movement.

From: Philippines, Asia
Watch: JustWatch, IMDb
Next: Black Girl, Breathless, Born in Flames

Perfumed Nightmare – The Breakdown

There are a lot of familiar elements in Perfumed Nightmare as it deliberately borrows from a mixture of well-known revolutionary film-making. The frenetic pace of the movie, with cuts across time and a fuzzy narrative voice that seems to be a half-second behind the images, feels a lot like Jean-Luc Godard’s iconic film, Breathless. The fast paced montages of Filipino and Parisian society, which meshes together a range of stock and new images showing the evolution of society towards modernization, borrows from Dziga Vertov’s influential Man with a Movie Camera. Both of these influences (each monumental to the development of European film) are referenced by the Director, Kidlat Tahimik, to stake a claim for Filipino film within the context of cinema and to also set Filipino film apart by reclaiming the medium’s portrayal of the Philippines.

One of the best things Kidlat Tahimik adds to the revolutionary film movement is humor. It both makes the film more enjoyable whilst also targeting the ‘Third World’s’ portrayal by ‘the West’ to reclaim it for the Third Cinema movement. One example of this is in the inventive use of dubbing, in which all of the film’s white characters, whether in the Philippines or Europe, are dubbed and made into comedic caricatures. One white person in the Philippines is turned into a bumbling, arrogant, imperialist, through the dubbing, whilst Kidlat’s French beneficiary is turned into a money obsessed businessman. Whilst it is fun to laugh at the dubbed characters, which makes the film an easier watch, the dubbing is also used to subvert the portrayal of Filipinos and other ‘Third World’ characters in Western film who are typically voiced and spoken for by white European/American directors. Instead, it’s the white characters that are spoken for in Perfumed Nightmare.

The film’s visual gags also serve a similar function. The shots of Kidlat filling up chewing gum dispensers in some ridiculous locations for his French beneficiary, whilst funny, also serves to make fun of capitalism. If chewing gum dispensers in cemeteries is the peak of Western progress, then capitalism and Western imperialism seems pointless. The humor is a welcome addition to an otherwise serious revolutionary genre. It makes the film easier to watch, but also backs up the central theme of Kidlat’s Charlie-Chaplin-esque journey chasing the American Dream; that life is better in the Philippines. Perfumed Nightmare mocks and rejects the progress of globalization, imperialism, capitalism, and everything the West stands for in favor of a celebration of Filipino life.

What to Watch Next

There’s a few places you can turn to next after watching Perfumed Nightmare. The most obvious place to go would be to watch more revolutionary films from the Third Cinema movement such as Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl or Sarah Maldoror’s Sambizanga. You could also brush up on your European film history, which Kidlat Tahimik subverts in this film, by watching Breathless or Man with a Movie Camera. Obviously both of these film movements have plenty more examples than the four listed above, so please don’t limit your exploration to these four movies!

Geographies of Solitude – AFI Fest 2022

Geographies of Solitude has many impressive shots of Nova Scotia’s Sable Island, a remote island almost 200 miles off the Canadian coast in the Atlantic Ocean. It starts with one of the most memorable shots, a night sky with more stars than you’ve likely ever seen in the sky before. The sheer number of stars makes the shot appear like an impressionistic painting, and the light is so bright, you even get to see a very clear silhouette of a person walking across the horizon. It’s an almost ASMR-type experience watching the opening with its complimentary ambient soundscape. It feels like you could watch the whole film without dialogue as the images and sound lull you into a trance, that it’s a surprise when there’s speech and we’re introduced to Zoe.

Zoe has been living on the island for over 40 years, mostly alone. We follow her as she explores the 12 square mile island every day to log any changes in the environment. She carries a kit with sampling pots and a notepad to capture anything new and log anything different she might see. Some days she might find a dead bird and on others she might encounter a new insect she hasn’t seen before, however, most days are repetitive logging exercises that track very small changes on the island. Despite the beautiful remote location, Zoe’s existence feels very monotonous and lonely.

The filmmaker, Jacquelyn Mills, takes the filmmaking to similarly exhaustive levels. Almost everything is shot using 16mm film, some of which is processed with a variety of experimental methods such as with peat, yarrow, and seaweed. Mills also pushes the soundtrack to the extreme with insect inspired melodies – literally music created to the steps of the local bugs. Both fit the subject of the documentary, as the experimental filmmaking matches Zoe’s own scientific experiments. However, the experimenting feels too exhaustive. There’s so much experimenting, it feels like the point of the experiments in the first place has been forgotten.

There’s a moment near the end of Geographies of Solitude in which Zoe questions the meaning of her own life. Her answer is a little melancholic as she seems to express doubt about her choice to live on the island for 40 years. She wonders if she’s stretched her life too long on the island and spent too much time away from everything else. The film feels a bit similar. The filmmakers have gone to extraordinary levels to make something unique – soaking film in peat and making music from bugs, but like Zoe’s endless logging, what is the point. Despite the beautiful location and beautiful shots, Geographies of Solitude is imbued with a melancholy for the futility of it all.

Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.

Taming the Garden – Sundance Film Festival 2021

Taming the Garden is a slow documentary about a billionaire’s project to create a garden of the grandest trees in his country. Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire, and former Prime Minister of Georgia, is the invisible villain of this film, as we follow the construction teams that uproot trees around the country and transport them across seas to his home.

As you’d expect from the poster, the visuals in Taming the Garden are almost unbelievable. It’s not often that you see huge old trees floating on the sea or driven down country roads. These images are more than enough to keep you engaged with the slow pace of the rest of the film. However, it’s a shame most viewers weren’t able to see it on the big screen.

The slow pace of the film shows no sign of a director. Instead, the focus is on the people on the construction team and the local people affected by their project. In between the shots of the trees we hear the conversations and opinions of the locals. It exposes us to a bit of the Georgian psyche – that what’s happening is just another cruel fate that they can’t avoid. Their complaints sound like a group of neighbors gossiping about their hated neighbor.

You can understand why they’re complaining. This invisible billionaire is buying and disappearing the most beautiful trees from their neighborhoods. They’re all trees that have taken centuries to grow, trees with sentimental value, that hold memories from their childhood. Whether it’s taken for granted or not prior to their removal, they give some sort of happiness to the local communities. Their removal therefore uproots some of the memories and happiness it holds, leaving an empty feeling in it’s place. In contrast to the time it takes for these huge trees to grow, Ivanishvili shows that money can quickly take them away.

The kicker of this movie comes in the final scene, when we finally get to see Ivanishvili’s garden. Ivanishvili is still nowhere to be seen. The only people we can see are gardeners patrolling the humongous property in golf carts. They’re the only people that see the beauty of the trees now, and now that they’re placed by so many other beautiful trees, they hardly stand out.

That’s not to say the garden isn’t beautiful. It is. The place, shrouded in mist, appears like a tree heaven that these trees have been transported to in their old age. The immense wealth of Ivanishvili has given him the power to create a garden of Eden. He’s created a garden in a few years which should have taken centuries to create. That it exists, demonstrates the power of a billionaires impatience. And that it exists alongside the rural poverty he’s taken them from highlights the inequality in the country.

Faya Dayi – A Khat Induced Trip Through Remote Ethiopia

Faya Dayi Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Faya Dayi is a trip of an Ethiopian documentary. It’s a fully immersive sensory experience into the highlands of Harar, Ethiopia with the help of Khat. Whilst it isn’t easy to keep track of the narrative threads, you’ll remember the tangible feel of the film.

From: Ethiopia, Africa
Watch: Trailer, Letterboxd
Next: Malni, Mother, I Am Suffocating, Fausto

Faya Dayi – The Breakdown

You might not know what’s going on in Faya Dayi, but that doesn’t matter. As instead of telling an easy to follow story, Faya Dayi gives us a complete sensory experience built by the film’s look and sound.

The film centers on the historical town of Hara in Eastern Ethiopia. Once, Harar was the center of Islamic culture and religion in the Horn of Africa but now the town is remote, sitting 500km away from Ethiopia’s capital, at almost 2km high. However, it’s still famous for being the birthplace of Khat, a plant whose leaves act as a euphoric stimulant for the locals that have been chewing them for centuries.

Faya Dayi chooses to focus on the magical Khat plant, but documents it in a very unique way. One strand of the documentary has observational footage of the Khat supply chain, documenting the commercial cycle of the crop from harvest to sale. This part of the film is pretty conventional and real. However, it’s mixed with two more strands – one featuring a boy navigating his relationship with his Khat chewing father and his brother that has left for Europe, and another following the mythical story of Elias and the birth of Khat. Both of these narratives are more poetic. They’re where the film employs the full breadth of it’s unique Khat-inspired style, and substitutes a focus on realism for a tangible sensory experience. Instead of telling a reliable story with these two narratives, Faya Dayi gives you a trip in Harar.

The style is what makes this film. Firstly, it’s all shot in black and white. There isn’t much light in the film, with most of the scenes taking place at night, so the low black and white contrast gives the film a dreamy timelessness. The images of Harar could be from today, the future, or 100 years ago. In addition to the dreamy low contrast shots, the director also uses a high number of close ups – of hands working and Khat leaves – with a very narrow depth of field. These shots are like flashlight beams illuminating parts of the darkness. They provide a focus in an otherwise dreamy film-scape. These moments, alongside the crisp diegetic sounds – of rustling leaves and crackling fires – make it feel like you’re right there in the moment.

It’s on this level that Faya Dayi feels Khat imbued. The vague storylines are just part of the act. We’re experiencing the sensations of the magical plant through the screen in the film’s immersiveness. The style accentuates our senses, making us feel like we’re there, but dulls our understanding of the plot. Instead of a linear, easy to follow narrative, we’re given a handful of strands to grasp at, until we give up trying to follow them and surrender to the meditative, poetic style. Watch this film in a dark room with a good sound system or headphones and drift along with it.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for another dreamy music and sound driven documentary that transports you to another places, check out Malni – Towards the Ocean.

Or if you’re simply looking for a more slow cinema documentaries there’s Lemojang Jeremiah Mosese’s Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You. as well as the darkness of the Peruvian mines in El Dorado XXI.

Lastly, for more wonder filled storytelling, immerse yourself in the fleeting episodes of Andrea Bussmann’s Fausto.

El Gran Movimiento (Bolivia) – Capturing the Hostility of the City

El Gran Movimiento Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Take another immersive trip with Elder in Bolivia in El Gran Movimiento. This time, instead of being consumed by the darkness of the mines like in Dark Skull, you’ll feel the oppressive urban environment of La Paz. The concrete and mechanical sounds are inescapable, and whilst there are plenty of people, everyone seems lonely. Even with the dance scenes and zany visions, El Gran Movimiento depicts a very bleak picture of the city.

From: Bolivia, South America
Watch: Trailer, IMDb
Next: Dark Skull, Los Conductos, Mysterious Object at Noon

El Gran Movimiento Breakdown

If you’ve seen Dark Skull, you’ll notice that El Gran Movimiento is its sequel. It features the return of Elder, Dark Skull‘s main character, who has walked 7 days to the city in search of work now that the Huanuni mine has closed. With nothing on offer in the city, he’s resumed his pre-miner life as a drifter; roaming the streets with hard liquor and some ‘friends.’ But now he’s older and he’s developed a hideous cough. His prospects in the city look incredibly bleak.

The style of the two films are also very similar. Both focus on unnatural environments (the mines and the city respectively) and frame them as incredibly hostile. In Dark Skull, Kiro Russo uses multiple shots of noisy mining machinery to create the film’s harsh environment. In El Gran Movimiento, Russo starts the film with a long montage of shots that slow-zoom in on city buildings and linger on city machinery (such as the motors of a cable car). These shots are accompanied by loud and unnatural mechanic sounds, traffic jams, and construction. Like the industrious shots of the mines, this opening emphasizes the hostile unnaturalness of the city.

It’s not until around the 10 minute mark that we first see life. However, the first scene with people doesn’t make the city appear any more friendly. It features protestors from the Huanuni mines clashing with tear gas-throwing police, in what is a living manifestation of the city’s hostility.

Elder’s plight in the city isn’t any better. As soon as he arrives he develops a cough that gets worse every day he stays there. Doctor’s can’t identify the illness, which make its origins unclear. Whilst it would make sense that it’s a symptom from his life as a miner, his symptoms only start to show after he arrives in the city. It makes it seem like it could be a metaphorical reaction to the hostile urban environment; or maybe even to the remnants of Spain’s Colonial rule. Either way, the other feature character, Max, a hermit that thrives in the picturesque natural environments on the fringes of the city, backs up the theory that the city is not a place for life.

The only respite for Elder comes in a few offbeat dance scenes and Max’s indigenous medicine. Each method hints at a different way of dealing with life in the city: 1) to simply get on with it and embrace the bleakness, or 2) to seek an anti-colonialist/capitalist return to the land’s roots and culture.

Overall, El Gran Movimiento is another bleakly brilliant construction of Bolivian life. Russo shows that even above ground, Bolivia’s man-made environments are not just destroying indigenous Bolivian culture, but also literally sucking the life out of the population. It’s a subtle anti-capitalist call for a return to nature and spirituality.

What to Watch Next

Dark Skull is a must watch if you enjoyed El Gran Movimiento and you haven’t already seen it. Many of the themes from this film were kick-started there from the bleak man-made environments to the Elder’s deteriorating health.

Or for another sub 90-minute South American art-house film with anti-capitalist vibes and a wandering lead character, try Colombia’s Los Conductos.

Lastly, you could also try the mystical films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, starting with the eclectic storytelling of Mysterious Object at Noon.