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61

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania – A Return From Exile

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Have you ever been displaced or exiled from your home? Or simply been away from home for more than a few months? Well you may sympathize with Jonas Mekas when watching this film. Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania is a walk in the shoes of a displaced person. It’s the incredibly intimate diary film of Jonas Mekas’ return to Lithuania to see his mother and family after 25 years in exile.

Here’s an example of three minutes from the film.

Why Watch Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania?
  • To see what makes a great diary film (films like a diary, often shot home video style)
  • Experience the life of a displaced person by seeing Mekas’ return from exile, shot mostly from a 1st person perspective
  • It’s one of the most intimate films you’ll see (you’ll be transported into Mekas’ life)
  • Because it was added to the U.S. National Film Registry because of it’s cultural, aesthetic, and historical significance
The Breakdown

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania is made up of three parts:

  1. Shots of Mekas and his brother in Brooklyn, New York from just after they were moved there from displacement camps in Germany
  2. Footage of their return to Lithuania after 25 years in exile
  3. Hamburg, the place they were both detained in Nazi German slave labour camps after fleeing Lithuania

The most time is spent on part 2, shooting their reunion with their mother and family after 25 years in exile. But because of the way the film is shot, it never really feels like they were home.

How the Style of the Film Emphasizes their Displacement

There are a few things you’ll notice straight away when watching Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania.

  1. There are a lot of cuts! The entire film is made up of short shots, so you never really have time to concentrate on one image.
  2. There’s no diegetic sound (ie. sound that comes directly from the film shown, apart from two singing scenes). All the sound comes from the melancholic piano soundtrack or from Mekas’ brother’s narration.
  3. As above, there’s also no dialogue. The whole film is narrated by Mekas’ brother.

When these three stylistic elements are combined in the film, it makes everything appear to be a memory from the past. Each short shot is like another memory of their former life in Lithuania.

If you’re not convinced, think of your childhood. Can you actually visualize a 3 minute long memory from your childhood with all the emotions you felt without relying on old VHS footage? If you can, you’re gifted. If not, your memory is probably composed of a load of snippets of things that made you laugh, smells, tastes, and people’s faces. This is exactly how Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania is composed, with short snippets of fresh fruit, family faces, and funny memories.

So even though the film is from the present, it looks like a distant memory that can never be relived. The style matches their inability to return home, after fleeing the country as Nazis and Soviets advanced in WW2.

Image result for reminiscences of a journey to lithuania

Conclusion

Because the film appears like a distant memory it’s pretty melancholic and nostalgic all the way through. The sounds of the piano and crackling film also don’t help to lift the mood.

Melancholy aside, it’s no surprise that this film was added to the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. It intimately depicts the experiences of a displaced person abroad and returning home. No other filmmaker allows the audience to get as close to the displaced person experience as Jonas Mekas. For this, and because it’s a beautifully made film, you should watch Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania.

62

Suleiman Mountain – Join a Bunch of Outcasts on the Road

Suleiman Mountain

Suleiman Mountain Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Ever wondered what life would be like growing up in the back of a converted East German truck with an alcoholic con man for a father, a practicing witch doctor for a mum, and your father’s second wife who’s probably young enough to be your sister. Well, here’s your chance to experience it. Join the crazy road trip in Suleiman Mountain.

From: Kyrgyzstan, Asia
Watch: Trailer, Amazon
Next: Shoplifters, Little Miss Sunshine, The Wounded Angel
Read The Full Review
64

Prince of Nothingwood (Afghanistan) – Meet Afganistan’s Biggest Film Star

Prince of Nothingwood Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

“This isn’t Hollywood, this isn’t Bollywood, this is Nothingwood, because there’s no money”. – Salim Shaheen

Salim Shaheen is Afghanistan’s biggest film star. He’s Afghanistan’s working class hero (like Cantiflas or Charlie Chaplin) and action film star (like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger). It’s time for you to get to know him!

Why Watch Prince of Nothingwood?
  • To meet Afghanistan’s biggest film star
  • For a positive alternative to the negative war dominated footage of Afghanistan you’ll usually see
  • See the remains of the famous Buddhas of Bamyan
  • Hear about the time when there was a bomb on set…
The Breakdown

Salim Shaheen’s story mirrors the story of Afghani cinema. There should be no role for him or for film within the strict Afghani customs. Back when he was a kid, he was beaten by his mother and brothers when they caught him singing and dancing on film. He was also beaten when he was caught sneaking off to the cinema to see some of the Bollywood hits. He was beaten up whenever he got near to film! Simply put, dancing, singing, and acting were all taboo; it just doesn’t fit in strict Afghani tradition.

However, even though Salim Shaheen’s films are a triumph for creativity, you’ll notice there aren’t any women on camera. The director, Sonia Kronlund, is the only woman you’ll see in the whole film. That’s because she’s treated like a man because she isn’t from there. In contrast, Sonia’s female translator is always hidden off camera. According to Sonia, she refused to say anything on camera. As there are no actresses, some of the men have to dress up as women. Despite the apparently strict society, this is considered acceptable, perhaps because homosexuality is inconceivable.

If you’ve been wanting to go to Afghanistan but are worried about the security, this is the perfect film to see. You’ll meet the people, travel across the country (to Bamyan), hear the music, and see the food.

Image result for prince of nothingwood

Conclusion

All in all The Prince of Nothingwood is a rare opportunity to see life in Afghanistan, and an equally rare opportunity to see a positive story from Afghanistan. Salim Shaheen’s story is a triumph for creativity in a society where access to cinematic resources is pretty much non-existent.

 

 

65

This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection – Sundance 2020

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is not your typical film. It’s pretty slow paced and full of carefully crafted shots, reminiscent of director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s debut, Mother I Am Suffocating. This is My Last Film About You. However, unlike his debut documentary feature, This Is Not a Burial, Its a Resurrection is Mosese’s first fictional feature film. But don’t expect an easy to follow narrative, as like a Lav Diaz film (see From What is Before), it requires a lot of interpretation. If you put in the effort, you’ll be rewarded with a beautiful constructed film touching on a wide range of themes covering death, community, progress, and the environment.

This Is Not a Burial, Its a Resurrection starts chaotically with a slow motion shot of a group of horses being attacked by tribesmen. This opening shot doesn’t appear to serve any contextual purpose, as the horses or tribesmen never reappear later in the film, but it does create a sense of uneasiness which prevents us from settling into the film. This feeling continues into the next scene in which a camera slowly pans around a dark empty bar with the eerie sounds of a lesiba instrument playing in the background. The cameras stops on a uniquely dressed man who starts giving us clues about what we are about to see. He doesn’t reveal much, as he uses a lot of legends and proverbs which don’t mean much to us at this point, but his speech indicates that we’ll have to be an active viewer and search for deeper meaning in the rest of the film.

We finally meet our main protagonist Mantoa in the next scene. She’s an eighty-something woman living alone in remote valley in Lesotho, which is a days trip from the nearest town. Her last son has passed away, so she’s now the last one left in her family. As a result, all she craves now is her own death, so she sets about planning her own funeral. Until her time comes, she carries on with the futility of her life, attending local community meetings and covering cracks in her mud floor. However, her patience is disrupted by news that the local government are planning to flood the area with the construction of a big dam. Not only does the dam disrupt the plans for her own burial, but it will also force the relocation of her buried family. As the main figure leading the resistance against the dam, she becomes more and more distanced from her community and religion. Her death isn’t a physical one, but a death from her community and cultural roots as the country ruthlessly pushes forward in the name of progress.

The narrative is sparse, but the look and feel of the film is incredibly rich. One way Mosese adds a unique richness is through his use of a taller 1:33:1 aspect ratio which gives the picture slightly more height. The extra vertical space allows the sky to dominate every image by taking up almost half of the screen for each landscape shot. In contrast, the people in the community are largely confined to the bottom third of each landscape shot. This framing adds power to the sky and nature, and diminishes the significance of the people below. Their lives and the things they do, such as building dams, are impermanent compared to the eternal nature of the sky (and heaven?). The taller aspect ratio therefore enforces the futility of not just Mantoa, but the futility of humanity as a whole.

The futility of humanity is enforced by the feeling generated by the films’ soundtrack. Firstly, listen to the trailer for this film without watching it. It sounds like a horror film. There’s the unique muffled bursts of the lesiba combined with a horror 101 mix of piano notes, scratchy strings, and ascending voices. This soundscape plays throughout the film to viscerally convey the confusion, anger, and sadness that Mantoa feels on her quest to join her dead family. But the sounds used in horror films also signifies the presence of the spiritual realm. Just as the taller aspect ratio gives more power to the sky and nature at the expense of the significance of humanity, the soundtrack bolsters the dominance of the spiritual over the physical human bodies. It reminds us that we’re not in control of our own fate.

The unsettling opening, sparse narrative, and rich look and feel of the film make This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection feel enigmatic. By the end, it feels like you’ve just watched a piece of art. You might have understood a bit of the film and felt its power and beauty, but you will finish it feeling that it’s full meaning is unattainable. It’s mystery is the mystery of life.