HOLIDAY OF MINIMALISM

Berlinale 2023

We had a friend - a wonderful film critic and, by the way, a true admirer of the Berlinale - her name was Ms. Basina. Together with her, for decades, we spent hours on velvet chairs in Berlin cinema halls, and she pointed out, referring to our other friend: “Musya seems to watch movies with more interest than anyone else, and sometimes she even watches movies faster than anyone else”. I was reminded of this line when the presentation combined two minimalist festival hits: "Allensworth" (Forum) and "Mul-an-e-seo/In water" (Encounters). Both films are a real pleasure for those who know how to watch movies "with more interesting than anyone else."

"Allensworth" by James Benning.

The American director is famous for his film as video installations. And here it is: a tree is swaying in the wind (3 minutes without cuts), then extended frontal shot of one house, then another, of the third, fourth, fifth… We can see a train passing behind the tenth house 25 minutes into the movie. 41 minutes into the movie - a bumper of a car flickers. A viewer who is into this movie “more than others” might have an idea that we might expect the movie to follow a pattern similar to Ravel’s “Bolero”- for example, a gradual expansion of content, which, closer to the finale will lead to an explosion of meanings. Not true. Well, that is, not quite true. After the houses, a teenage schoolgirl appears, who reads a text by Nina Simone about “a little sadness”. Allensworth is - as you know, a city in California, which was established in 1908 as the first settlement to be founded, governed, and financed by African Americans. It became a national park in the mid-1970s.

Do you know what happens as a result? A sequence of frames - deserted, meaningless and hypnotizing (partly), turns out to be a cunning trap of Time. Time in which there are so many meaningless and empty efforts that for some reason hypnotize us... Director's focal point.

"Mul-an-e-seo/In water" by Hong Sangsoo.

The cult South Korean filmmaker also loves long uninterrupted shots, which only a very patient viewer, who enjoys hypnotic trance, will be able to watch all the way to the end. Trying to be enigmatic? Certainly. But you should have seen how, flushed and excited, the fans were rushing to see the film.

The director prefers to focus on filmmakers who wander along the sea shore and ruminate - thus, they represent complex multi-dimensional characters. Curiously, "Mul-an-e-seo" was filmed almost entirely out of focus and most likely using an old VHS camera. At first it seems that one has had too much prosecco before the movie (note that most of the festival cinema auditoriums are equipped with folding chairs and side tables); then you think that your eyes hurt. Then you are visited by an insight: is the image really stylized to resemble impressionists, or rather those who profess pointillisme - like Georges Seurat?! Come on! Meanwhile, the main character (the director himself) eventually figures out where to put the camera, and gradually moving away from it, disappears in the waves. Literally. Such a minimalist oops.

How correct our extraordinary colleague Ms. Basina was in so many ways!