By Ron Wilkinson May 15, 2007, 9:24 GMT
Using her own set of rules even more restrictive than ‘Dogma 95,’ Director Julia Loktev has created a story of pure here and now.
A young woman (She) has volunteered for an unusual mission, a suicide bombing to take place in Times Square, New York City. The audience is not informed why the woman is doing this. In fact, the audience knows nothing whatsoever about the suicide bomber or the people behind her mission.The woman speaks very little and when she does she speaks with no accent. Her facial features are those of women throughout the world; we know nothing about her motive, political or otherwise.
All we know is that she, and the people who help her, completely believes in what she is doing. There are three Organizers, a Driver, a Bombmaker and a Bombmaker’s Assistant. The rest of the cast consists of random passers-by in Times Square looking on as the film is being shot.
The on-lookers have no idea that the heavy backpack She is carrying is loaded with fake explosives nor that the cord hanging down in front is the fake detonating switch. They see She, but they don’t know the story She is telling. Just as well, one supposes.
Loktev was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and this, her first narrative feature, follows on the heels of her indie classic documentary, “Moment of Impact,” now in the permanent film collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art.
“Day Night” has garnered a considerable collection of newcomer awards and is well on the way to becoming a classic in its own right. It is shot entirely with a handheld camera on what would appear to be a miniscule budget. Lead Luisa Williams wears no makeup and had no previous film experience prior to shooting the film. Both Williams and Loktev live in New York City.
The film is composed of two parts. The first part is the Preparation and the second part is the Action.
Preparation takes place almost entirely in a hotel room and is photographed in washed out shades of gray and blue. The effect is sterilizing, as She is in an environment of ideas, an environment where nothing can go wrong and everything is a product of the mind. Hooded figures shift in and out, the Bombmaker and his Assistant give simple instructions to She. The phone rings; they will be there in fifteen minutes.
Action moves to Times Square where the plot moves to Loktev’s inspirations of previous suicide bombers who inexplicably buy snacks and perform other mundane functions as they take the final steps of their lives. The crowd interacts only marginally with the director, actress and cameraman.
As Loktev says, everybody has cameras in Times Square. Action is filmed in color with all of the native sounds of the jam packed tourist epicenter of America. The sirens, the buses, the snatches of conversations, the bumps and the pushes. Things don’t go according to plan. She begs for money. Lights flash.
Asked about the back story for this movie at its world premier at the Lincoln Center New Directors / New Films the director said there was, indeed, a back story, but she wasn’t going to divulge what it was.
Apparently having Williams drum up the entire performance completely out of thin air was too much to ask. So the two developed a story to precede the action in the film. It must be very transparent, because there is not a hint of it in “Day Night Day Night.” Just the here and now.
Themes of control and surrender intermix with two very different Joans of Arc; the first that of Dreyer and the second of Bresson. An extremely edgy film that asks a lot from the audience, this is more of a textbook example of what film can be than actual entertainment.
But the public will have the limited opportunity to see it in theatres other than MOMA, although for how long is hard to say.
Day Night Day Night Directed and Written by Julia Loktev Starring: Luisa Williams Runtime: 94 minutesCountry: USA / Germany / France
Opens: May 9, 2007. MPAA: Not Rated
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