So today was the first day of the festival in which I responded negatively to each of the films in question in some capacity. Previously, I’ve had at least one film (and usually more) that has had some impact on me either emotionally or cerebrally during each day, but for today at least this was not the case. It was interesting to gauge my reactions against others who had (sometimes intensely) opposing opinions to me, but ultimately it’s disappointing to have a whole day of films that feel lacklustre. Let’s find out what they were shall we?
Manuscripts Don’t Burn (Dir. Mohammad Rasoulof)
Manuscripts Don’t Burn is an Iranian drama whose background and method of creation are far more fascinating than the finished product itself. The film is based upon a true story and portrays a ruthless investigation from Iranian authorities to obtain and destroy an author’s manuscripts held by himself and two of his colleagues. The manuscripts are the author’s memoirs, and they have garnered governmental interest through their recounting of a particular incident in which a group of poets and writers were almost driven to their deaths by a man named Khosrow, who now reveals that he was ordered to do so. Khosrow now seems to have been recruited again to help find the manuscripts by any means necessary it seems, all in the questionable name of national security. The director Mohammad Rasoulof met the same fate as his compatriot Jafar Panahi, and was forced to make Manuscripts Don’t Burn under immediate and covert circumstances; the film is even devoid of a credit reel out of trepidation of swift consequence from the Islamic republic.
As a mode of political resistance to an oppressive government the film’s very creation displays an astounding act of courage, especially considering the repercussions that will more than likely result from Manuscripts Don’t Burn’s own existence. Outside of that notion however, the film is somewhat of an inert and cloyingly didactic affair. It plays out in three disparate storylines that converge towards as the film gains propulsion, but very little tethers the viewer to a full comprehension of just how impactful and upsetting the situation is. In my mind, as a receptacle for the transmission of the necessary truths and abuse of power that the film is attempting to shed light upon, Manuscripts Don’t Burn falls short of its intended impact and rather ends up laborious and frustrating. Given the importance of the situation, its effective communication is crucial to its position as a tool of protest. The fact that it will be disengaging for most is, at the end of the day, unfortunate.
The Last Time I Saw Macao (Dir. João Rui Guerra da Mata & João Pedro Rodrigues)
Taking off where Chris Marker’s seminal film essay Sans Soleil left off, The Last Time I Saw Macao depicts a disembodied Portuguese man (told entirely through voice over) and his return to the island of Macao for the first time in 30 years. He has received a message from a distant friend named Candy who claims she is in trouble and requires his help to which reluctantly it seems, he obliges. Macao, once a Portuguese settlement, provides the man with an opening of his memories’ floodgates as he arrives by boat to the now casino-drenched bustle that is post-handover Macao. Much of the film is made up of the narrator’s observations, both through the camera’s eye and his floating and lyrical insights, as he visits sites of his past, queries the nature of his expedition and wanders the lonely streets of Macanese neon excess. Tied to his nomadic eye is a slyly forced narrative that occupies neo-noir territory, involving a complex web of murder and metamorphosed animals of the Zodiac apparently.
Existing on it’s own terms the film is a fractured experience. There are moments in which the rapture of discovery and the recollection of times gone by are evocative and inviting. When the camera is allowed to explore spaces and the narrator contemplate his stream of consciousness, the film becomes an intoxicating experience in which every image can be savoured, if one so chooses. Where The Last Time I Saw Macao ultimately falters however is it’s attachment to this previously mentioned narrative thread that awkwardly rears its intrusive head at the most inopportune moments. This is where comparisons to Sans Soleil come knocking at the door of my mind, forcing me to compare the two (which are admittedly uncomfortably similar). Both films deal in personal memory and the impact of time, the historicising of post-colonialism, the uncanniness of the stranger in a strange land and of course an obsession with cats. Where Sans Soleil is able to effortlessly infuse it’s incommunicable concepts into a profound realisation, The Last Time I Saw Macao seems unable to dislocate itself from its ties to reality, and in my mind, suffers for it. As an exercise in and of itself, the film has much to appreciate, but unfortunately lacks a total clarity that keeps it from being something truly special.
differently, Molussia (Dir. Nicolas Rey)
Another film that in concept is much stronger than its execution, however this one is probably the most provocative of the bunch I saw today, at least on a conceptual level. differently, Molussia is a film made up of nine 16mm documents that before each screening of the film are randomised and presented as a whole after the fact. This apparently leaves a possibility of 362,880 versions of the film to be consumed, which on its base level is an intriguing concept in itself. The segments portray a fictional country called Molussia and consist of mostly documentary type footage displaying places and objects such as fields, buildings and farms, all accompanied by a very dry voice over which seems to be reading from a book on the subject of Molussia and some of its inhabitants. The images are framed as to resemble early educational film reels, with the images and sound constantly warbling out of synchronicity in an attempt to present itself as an artefact of the past, some visual relic now gathering dust on an A/V club shelf.
As a presentation the film acts almost like ambient music, allowing the viewer to zone in and out of the proceedings with little fracture to their understanding of the logic of the screen images. In fact, the very nature of the spliced order of the film disallows for such a practice, throwing cohesive narrative functions out the window. In this sense one is reminded of Michael Snow’s 1967 film Wavelength, a 45-minute image of a room that slowly zooms in with different characters entering the space at random events. The calm and disorientation it invites is crucial to its tangential reception, which could also be said for differently, Molussia. As it stands the film is a presentation of banality that becomes interesting for the lack of interest it dredges up. A proponent of remix culture, the film seeks to question our comprehension of linearity and offers an alternate perspective through not only its construction but also through it’s images. At several points the camera literally spins on an axis, an obvious but effective technique. Even though my response to the film is ultimately a lukewarm one, and while differently, Molussia definitely isn’t for every viewer, it is surely an interesting and unique cinematic exercise.
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