SHADOWS IN TURMOIL

IDFA-2023 news

“The Clinic”, Midi Z. There is something of Apichatpong Weersethakul in this gloomy in the beginning and rather choleric at the end  documentary “The Clinic” by Midi Z. Rainy night, shabby shop which turns out to be a small hospital. Chaos turns into measured and thoughtful attempts to provide locals with medical help. And as in Weersethakul' melancholic narrations the main characters turn out to be a shadows of themselves; these shadows are real personalities but with a completely different activities. The doctors San San Oo and Aung Min, who  never close their doors and who are involved in all the problems of the patients (from alcoholism to petty theft and mental health), appear to be an accomplished painter and a filmmaker, who is preparing to shoot a feature about a Rakhine actor. The actor is growing a beard for a role as a Rohingya. And step by step he is behaving like a Rohingya – again another level of apparition of shadows of the characters.

     This complex dramatic construction looks completely natural in the film, and gives it an amazing charm. The charm is illusory and at the same time filled with soft hardly perceptible comic effects. After several circles we are already inside the feature film footage, which is unpredictably beautiful – and these feature images open like unknown flowers in jungles.

     And there is one more visual level: black and white images by Canadian photojournalist Kevin Frayer convey the ethnic cleansing visited upon the Rohingya.

    Thus we are in the circling circle of reality and imaginative attempts to present the reality with all the possible responsibility – and following the vicissitudes we find ourselves in front of doctors, who would like to be cinema directors, but shooting they continue to spend time with their main duty: to be responsible for people’s life.

     Unpredictably we even witness the participation of the feature (film im film) at the international film festival, and that gives a new glimpse at the futility of the author's self-confidence. And this is a very convincing free flow of documentary observation the anguish of a country. A very strong political commentary.

    We were learning by heart when were kids the following sentences by R.L.Stevenson…and we were thinking they were funny…

…I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed…