The Iranian port city of Abadan is perched near the Iraqi border, along the
Persian Gulf. It was a precarious place to live during the 1980 War, but the
locals are really at the mercy of the sea. The entire area largely revolves
around the fishing (and shrimping) industry, so when catches are good, business
is good. When catches are bad, times are tough. Filmmaker Shahab Mihandoust closely
observes their work off and on-shore in Meezan (Scale), which screens
during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
It
has been over forty years since the Iran-Iraq War, but it is still a common
point of reference for the hardscrabble fishermen and longshoremen. The work is
hard and probably smelly, but what really comes through in Meezan is the
ambient sounds. Mihandoust takes great efforts to immerse viewers (who are
almost more listeners) in Abadan’s aural landscape. The intention is almost to
create an ASMR ethnographic documentary.
Cineastes
who are intellectually fascinated with process and craft will be enraptured by
Mihandoust’s sound design. However, those hoping to delve into the sociology of
Iran’s marginalized working class, they must mostly glean what they can from
the Wiseman-esque presentation. Mihandoust incorporates some interview snippets,
but they are more conversational rather than probing.
This is a film built around real people, who, like reality TV stars, constantly
embarrass and disgrace themselves. In the case of these Russian soldiers, they repeatedly
confess to war crimes, wanton cruelty, jingoistic prejudice, and just generally
getting their butts kicked on the legitimate battlefield by Ukrainian soldiers.
They were calling home, but Ukrainian intelligence was listening. The resulting
recordings reveal the depravity and demoralization of the invading Russian
military in Oksana Karpovych’s documentary, Intercepted, which screens
during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
It
is easy to understand why Russian soldiers are not supposed to phone home. They
reveal a lot, but the intercepts the Ukrainian government chose to release to
the world expose the Russian militarist attitude rather than sensitive
intelligence. For instance, nearly every caller uses the terms “Khokhols” and “Banderites,”
which are Russian slurs for the Ukrainian people.
Several
calls frankly describe the intentional mass murder of Ukrainian civilians. They
are literally talking shooting people in the head and then dumping them in a
ditch. Much like the harrowing 20 Days in Mariupol, Intercepted should
be entered into evidence during a future war crimes tribunal.
The
confessions are truly damning, but the attitude of the Russians back home might
be even more disturbing. Their girlfriends, wives and mothers express outrage
that the Ukrainians are not welcoming the Russian invaders into their home,
even while literally cheering on the torture and killing of non-combatant
Ukrainians.
People conveniently forget the genocidal Slobodan Milosevic was formerly a
Communist Party official in the unified Yugoslavia and he was the leader of Serbia’s
Socialist Party. Stefan’s single-mother Marklena Nikolic was certainly aware of
that fact, because she serves as a high-profile Socialist Party spokesman in
Vladimir Perisic’s Lost Country, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
Even
in Serbia, the name “Marklena” is unusual, so she must often explain it is a
contraction of Marx and Lenin. Not surprisingly, she is a Socialist—and she sternly
informs her teenage son Stefan that he must always be one too. However, as the
1996 protests against Milosevic and his Socialists intensify, Stefan finds it
is not such a fun time to be a Socialist at school, especially when his friends’
relatives start disappearing.
Stefan
pretends his mother is another “Marklena Nikolic” and not the hated woman on
the government broadcasts, but with a name like that, nobody believes him. With
his peers freezing him out, Stefan increasingly lashes out their slights and
insults. He must believe they are lying about her and her role in the Socialist
Party, but the more he sees and overhears, the harder that gets.
Lost
Country illustrates
how the crimes of socialist regimes compound in tragic and unexpected ways.
This is ultimately a bracing and profoundly sad film, but Perisic’s severe aesthetic
might put off some viewers. His pacing is slow, but the intimate focus has a
hypnotic effect on those who are open to it.
The sleazy truck stops and lonely highways of the remote Karachay-Cherkessia
region are not fit places to raise a teen girl, but is there anyplace in Russia
where it is safe for families? At least the father and his daughter keep
moving, screening DVDs in their makeshift projected cinema. Inevitably, she starts
to realize it is not much of a life in Ilya Povolotsky’s Grace, which
screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
Evidently,
this area of Russia is so economically depressed, people cannot even afford names.
The end credits simply refer to her as “Daughter,” him as “Father,” and the
rest as “Characters.” Clearly, there is no mother, leaving all parental duties
to the father.
Unfortunately,
her father is stuck on auto-pilot, unable to envision anything else but their
hardscrabble nomadic life. She is starting to question him, just as boys are beginning
to notice her.
The
central father-daughter relationship would ordinarily be relatable across
cultures, but Povolotsky depicts it in such an emotionally reserved manner, it
will freeze out the vast majority of viewers. Instead, the audience mostly
takes a slow cinema tour of the Balkar-speaking Russian boondocks. The film
thoroughly establishes the economic stagnation, environmental degradation,
infrastructure decay, and police corruption of provincial Russia. Of course,
most people over the age of twelve years-old not named Tucker Carlson were
already reasonably cognizant of this reality.
It
is really hard to understand who this film was programmed for, beyond a small circle
of Slow Cinema devotees. Povolotsky is admirably committed to immersing the
audience in the circumstances of the Daughter’s life, but his esthetic approach
is distancing, to put it diplomatically. However, it can safely be screened
without violating any institutional sanctions against Russia, post-Putin’s
invasion, because it was clearly produced far outside the state cinema establishment.
There is only good thing about censors. Since they are crude creatures of their
ruling regime, they are mostly dim bulbs and largely out of their depth when it
comes to experimental film. Maybe that is why this short film exists. Technically,
it is two films that are possibly related, but part two directly references
censorship. If you want to gingerly stick your toe into the avant-garde, a good
place to start would be Lei Lei’s Break No. 1 & Break No. 2, which
screens during New Directors/New Films 2024.
This
first “Break,” tells a rather tragic but highly relatable human story, albeit
in a somewhat elliptical manner. The narrator’s tale of his lover, who
inexplicably committed suicide in hotel room also has extra resonance the filmmaker
perhaps never intended. Nevertheless, it is a fact a wave of convenient
suicides has swept over Hong Kong, suspiciously targeting supporters of the
Umbrella protests.
In
this case, the photos the narrator’s lover always carried were also
mysteriously missing, which again echoes experiences of Hong Kongers. It all
unfolds over a montage of static shots of the lover’s hotel room and close-ups
of the retro light fixtures, which was maybe a blessing, because the
unsophisticated will quickly tune out.
During
the second “Break,” the narrator discusses a visit he made with his lover (not
expressively identified as the suicide victim in the first break, but that
seems to be a logical assumption) to public video booth that screened serious
cinema instead of skin flicks. Unfortunately, the proprietor could never find
the John Woo gangster film that wanted to watch.
