Rating: 3.5/5
Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 5/52 | Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
One does not create by adding but by taking away. — Robert Bresson
This film is an anthology of seven segments from seven directors. Some are documentaries, some fiction, all touching on the COVID-19 quarantine lockdown.
Jafar Panahi — Tehran, Iran **.5 The Panahi family’s pet iguana watches a pigeon outside. It longs to eat the bird’s eggs. Jafar’s mother-in-law comes over, dressed head-to-toe in protective clothing. The documentary focuses on the mother-in-law’s concern about coronavirus. It compares the mannerisms of the iguana and the mother, both aging and in need of regular care.
Anthony Chin — Tongzhou, China ***.5 A man squats on the floor of his kitchen, watching his wife hold their crying son. The woman’s father calls and FaceTimes with them, lamenting that they haven’t come to see him, but they’ll do it once this virus blows over. They watch the Chinese New Year from their window. The short follows the couple as quarantine tests their relationship.
Girl, leave this manchild. Is their kid named 小号??
Malik Vitthal — California, USA ***.5 Bobby Yay Yay is trying to get back his kids while continuing his job working with troubled youth. His three children live in three different foster homes after a poorly handled divorce. All this while the quarantine is underway.
The short combines footage from phone and Skype calls with animation to convey abstractly what the footage cannot capture, such as Bobby’s state of mind.
Laura Poitras (with Forensic Architecture) — New York City, USA *** One month into lockdown, Forensic Architecture asked Laura Poitras to join them in investigating NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons manufacturer. The doc uses voice memos, recorded Skype calls, and footage from Poitras’s apartment and outside her windows.
I love that you can see Nan Goldin’s photos on Poitras’ wall. She also worked on the Nan Goldin documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. This one is terrifying but really dense.
Dominga Sotomayor — Santiago, Chile ***.5 A woman works in her greenhouse. She receives a text. She puts on her headphones and records herself singing in the bathroom. She gets a call about one of her daughters. So, she locks up the house and walks to a remote location where she finds her daughter trying to pitch a tent. The daughter could have the police had caught her breaking quarantine. The short follows the mother and daughter’s cohabitation and their effort to see the other daughter’s newborn child.
David Lowery — Texas, USA *** A woman digs through a storage unit. She grabs an unopened can of seltzer, taps the piano, and finds a box of letters. She returns the letters to her car, drinks the seltzer, and goes through the letters. The first one is post dated Feb 22, 1926. A gunshot interrupts her letter reading, sending her driving off. Through the letters, the woman finds directions to a grave where the letter writer buried his son.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul — Chiang Mai, Thailand **
The trees unusually sprout more branches, touching the old house, the distant friends, and those who had disappeared. The young leaves unfold, flushed with memories in the year of the everlasting storm. Its roar has become my nocturnal companion.
A praying mantis eats a fly on a bedsheet. We pull out to see a bed covered in insects and several fluorescent lights set up on stands around the bed. In the background are family photos. Through the din of crickets and bugs colliding with surfaces, a dialogue emerges.
This one was a horror movie—my skin crawled the entire time.