The Loneliest Planet
A Film By Julia
Loktev
United States and
Germany
The
moment that changes everything for the two characters in The Loneliest Planet is so brief that you need to make sure you are
keeping your eyes on the screen. I almost missed it writing something in my
notes. A lot of people could easily subscribe this film as one of those subtle
works that requires copious amounts of attention for a sly and only relatively
satisfactory payoff. However, Julia
Loktev’s second narrative film is a unique look at communication that does
require more thinking than the average film, but the reward after considering
the film’s actions only deepens with time.
Shot
in the gorgeous landscapes of the Georgian mountains, Ms. Loktev never sets up
exactly what type of story we will be watching. We begin by seeing the young
Nica (Hani Furstenberg) jumping nude up and down on a wooden plank that crashes
against our eardrums. Is she captive? No, she’s just waiting for her boyfriend
Alex, played by Gael García Bernal, to bring in the hot water so she can finish
her shower. The two are on a backpacking adventure across Georgia. In early
scenes, we see them interact with local culture through gestures and movements.
These two are experienced in the world, we can tell, not just tourists trying
to go the insider route.
One
might expect, especially with shots that mimic the epic opening of Werner
Herzog’s Agguire: The Wrath of God, that The Loneliest Plant may be a commentary on over-ambitious travelers
who are way over their head in a culture they simply cannot understand. And for
a while, as we see our couple and their guide Dato (a fantastic Bidzina
Gujabidze, a real tour guide from Georgia) traversing the landscape with only
nature standing in our way, you might be right. Ms. Loktev gives us plenty of
scenery to adore with our eyes, and a few funny and lively conversations, but
not much in terms of subtext, as it first appears.
But
then, it happens. A moment that changes everything between Nica and Alex, of
which they then never speak to each other in the film about. Did we see what
happened? From this point on, The
Loneliest Planet takes off as a story about communication between two who
love each other but can’t find a way to communicate. The majestic plains that
seemed so open suddenly become claustrophobic. Dato goes from a casual guide to
a frustrating observer. Ms. Loktev
isn’t changing her filmmaking techniques at all, balancing between intense
handheld close-ups with majestic wide shots, but in doing so it is the point.
The Loneliest Planet thus focuses on
small gestures that people do to rebuild communication. A hand reaching for a
shoulder. A moment of breath as if to speak. A dried apricot. It’s a story that
in many ways is universal between couples, but using this specific relationship
in such a unique environment, Ms. Loktev creates something that feels vividly
personal. The reward by the end seems quite paltry in what we may hope for, but
The Loneliest Planet wants us to
think about how ourselves instead, and our own reactions to situations that can
cause riffs. This is the type of film you walk out of that seems so small and
simple, and yet in infects your brain with ideas about how we interact with
others in situations we cannot stand. These characters may be crossing
mountains, but the largest spaces seem to be between themselves.
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