NORWICH FILM FESTIVAL - INTERNATIONAL MIX
Five short films dealing - in wildly different contexts - with the tensions between autonomy and connection.
An excellent, thoughtful evening’s entertainment at Cinema City on the penultimate day of the Norwich Film Festival. Five short films dealing - in wildly different contexts - with the tensions between autonomy and connection.
The selection begins with ‘Mamie,’ in which a woman’s daughter and granddaughter attempt to come to terms with the fact that she intends to take her own life. The scene in which the three of them discuss this over an unsatisfying dinner cooked by the woman’s daughter (too little salt, the other two agree) is rivalled in the mealtime misery stakes by a moment in Daood Alabdulaa and Louise Zenker‘s remarkable ‘Walud’ in which the protagonist (a woman called Amuna) serves dinner for her despicable husband Aziz and his recently acquired, and unnamed, second wife.
Up until this point, we have neither heard from nor seen Aziz’s new wife’s face, which has been concealed by her burqa. However, when she declines to eat he aggressively removes her face covering and insists that she has some food. A little later Aziz instructs Amuna that she will be sleeping on the back of his pickup truck tonight. The remainder of the film concerns the, almost wordless, relationship between the two women and culminates in a remarkable act of courage and defiance from the older woman.
‘Walud’ is a powerful and grimly believable film, set in rural Syria. Although good is certainly done in the course of the narrative, we are led to believe that the consequences of this will likely be terrible for the person making what is objectively the ‘right’ choice. The hope the film offers is heavily qualified; a statement which could just as easily be the other films here.
‘Synthesize Me’ is a moving, magical realist tale of a young girl attempting to come to terms with the death of her musician mother. By way of a musical metaphor that is subtle enough to avoid triteness, the film explores the different ways we might grieve, and the impacts of this on ourselves and others.
‘Wild Boar Hunting,’ set in France, concerns a young man’s reluctance to go through with the initiation ritual that will see him enter the adult world. The combination of the scorn he receives for refusing to kill the titular creature, and the extended close-ups we see of the boar’s disembowelling can’t help but suggest that he made the correct choice. But, at what cost?
The final film ‘Looking She Said I Forget’ concerns a woman moving to Amsterdam and seemingly having second thoughts about suggesting to her partner that they have an open relationship. He seems to have wasted no time in finding someone else, while she mopes around their empty new flat, gradually unpacking their possessions from boxes and staring wistfully out of her window at the open-air urinal by the canal.
The film ambles towards a conclusion which suggests her solipsism may be waning, but not before we learn that what she really longs for is the ability to urinate while standing.
