The brilliance of Araby is hard to pinpoint. This analogy might not do it justice, but it’s a bit like going to a retirement home and meeting a fascinating storyteller who intimately reveals to you their life story in 90 minutes. There’s nothing particularly special about Cristiano’s life in Araby, but it’s told so intimately and warmly, that you just can’t help but watch and listen. The patient viewer will reap it’s rewards.
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:
Shots of Mekas and his brother in Brooklyn, New York from just after they were moved there from displacement camps in Germany
Footage of their return to Lithuania after 25 years in exile
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kings of Nowhere feels like it could be a sequel to Once Upon a Time in Venezuela. Instead of showing a small town on the lake that is being destroyed by sediment like in Once Upon a Time in Venezuela, the town in Kings of Nowhere has already been consumed by water. The handful of people that have refused to move live on limited resources at threat from local bandits. It doesn’t look like a town that will last much longer as it tries to survive without the support of the government and other communities.
Kings of Nowhere starts with a man navigating a motor boat through a forest of dead tree trunks sticking out of the lake. A layer of mist sits on the lake, blocking our view of the shores or town. From the dead branches and mist, it feels like we’re being taken through a mythical underworld. Added to the clusters of half sunken buildings we see in the next scene and it’s apparent that this town isn’t one that should still be supporting human life. It has been almost completely consumed by the lake.
The director never reveals what happened to the town. Instead of hearing why it is the way it is and how people struggle to live in the town, the director allows the subjects to tell their own stories. Early on, a ferryman starts laughing as he recounts old happy memories of the town. Later, a middle aged couple talk about a sign from God which led them to start renovating the town church that had been forgotten when the people left the town. Both feel like they’re clinging onto a past that has disappeared instead of trying to start a new life elsewhere.
You also feel this in the tone of the documentary. The slow pace and lack of movement of the sequences embodies the desire of the characters to stay where they are. The languid shots of the town’s inhabitants also reveals their acceptance of the futility of life. The remaining residents lounge around, renovate churches without congregations, and boat across the lake to visit lost cows. All their actions seem pointless. Nothing they can do will bring back the town or attract new residents, which they seem to be aware of. Occupying the time they have left is all they can do to postpone the inevitable decay of the town.
Kings of Nowhere is a story of people refusing to die. Their town is the place where they’ve forged their lives and connection to their happy memories and past. Moving on would sever roots that have grown too strong and stiff. They show the stubbornness of people not willing to change at all costs – after all, home is home.
What to Watch Next
First of all you, should watch Once Upon a Time in Venezuela before or after watching Kings of Nowhere. Set in a town that is being slowly consumed by sediment from the lake, Once Upon a Time in Venezuela feels like it could be a prequel to Kings of Nowhere.
Or if you enjoy Mexican documentaries that drift through places listening to the inhabitants and their stories, check out Andrea Bussmann’s Fausto.
For more languid observational documentaries you should also check out Kazuhiro Soda’s Inland Sea and Peace.
If you love films about mad historical characters then check out Rey. It follows the unlikely story of Orelie-Antoine de Tounens, a French country lawyer who ventures to Chile in 1858 to unite the Mapuche. If you liked the madness of Aguirre or Apocalypse Now check this art-house flick now! I recommend watching the trailer below to see if you can handle it!
Why Watch Rey?
It took 7 years to make – director Niles Atallah even buried the 16mm film footage in his back garden to artificially age it
If you want a Quixotic version of the Herzogian madmen (see Aguirre or Apocalypse Now)
It stretches the boundaries of film by playing with myth, memory, and history
To feel like you’re in one of the world’s last wildernesses
The Breakdown
Rey begins with a Frenchmen who landed on the coast of Chile in 1858. According to legend he traveled to the end of the South American continent to create his own kingdom. He united the tribes from the region and proclaimed himself king.
If you think it already sounds mythic, the film’s experimental style makes it seem even more unbelievable. We first meet the self proclaimed king standing alone in the wilderness shrouded in mist. After the mist clears, he declares himself ‘the king of water’ as water magically flows from his hands into a pool of water below him.
The unusual images don’t stop there either. Later on, when he is on trial, all the characters involved in the trail are wearing paper-mache masks. The masks could signify the character’s lost connection with the true history of the continent (they refuse to acknowledge the tribes in the south). Or that they use the masks to hide their true history, which is ultimately wiped out.
Is Rey an allegory of colonialism?
As the French lawyer narrates how he came to South America, we are shown images of ships landing and western looking men riding horses. He describes how he ‘flew across the sea’ and immediately ‘felt the spirit of the land.’ Layering his narration over the images of westerners arriving is an allegory to the colonizers who came across the seas centuries before. He like them, has come to take control of the land. In his case, he ventures south in an attempt to unite and lead the Mapuche tribes. In doing so, he brings the last autonomous region in Chile into the spotlight. Ultimately, he is the tribes downfall.
Conclusion
Rey is one of the experimental films that works well. It pieces together the beginning of the end for the last autonomous tribes in Chile through the unbelievable character of Orelie-Antione de Tounens. It’s a creative depiction of a enigmatic character that fuses myth, memory, and history to tell an unlikely story.
For more similar (but easier to watch) films of enigmatic characters in Southern America, check out Aguirre and The Lost City of Z. Or if it’s a good jungle film you’re after, check out The Embrace of the Serpent and Apocalypse Now.
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