avasilachi
ene 2011 se unió
Distintivos2
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Reseñas4
Clasificación de avasilachi
Set in 1993 in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, during a national election that would've signified a shift from military rule to democracy. Two young brothers, Remi and Akin, accompany their father to the city in order to collect his delayed salary. The whole film takes place during one day, in which we get a few glimpses of their lives with short but impactful dialogues between father and sons.
The tone is masterfully crafted but never forced. Director Akinola Davies Jr. Is gentle in his style, inviting us into the emotional side of his world through beautiful use of close shots - the camera often lingers on dad's eyes, his pronounced frown and subtle expressions suggesting pain and longing. Other times, the camera waywardly dances around, accompanied by droning and intermittent piano notes with playful reverberations that, in my mind, signifies a slow reconstruction of a memory. It often pans to the contrasting color and decay in the streets, then to the sky, where a group of circling birds would follow the father and his sons throughout the film, never quite leaving us at ease.
The subtlety of the cinematography somewhat clashes with its predictible tragedy at the end, yet the tone of the film is simply hypnotizing, and the chemistry between father and sons keep us invested all the way to the end. The oncoming death is strongly hinted, quite literally through multiple shots of lingering birds in the sky that never fail to draw Remi's and Akin's attention. As the film is drawn loosely from director's own experiences, I couldn't help but think that this was a love letter to his own father.
In this sense, the film acts as a "slow recognition" - as Jason Ryle mentions in the official TIFF synopsis - of the often absent father through the eyes of his sons. "The difficult work of seeing someone clearly, perhaps for the first time, and finding something in them more profound than expected".
The father's impenetrable appearance is gradually pierced and he opens up as the day goes on, for what seems like the first time in his life, to his own sons.
One particular scene comes to mind, when they reach the beach and Folarin (the father) tells his eldest son the story of his own childhood, when his older brother drowned and how years later he had dreamt him in his sleep, always waking up at the moment that his dead brother was trying to tell him something. Folarin was then saddened by how no one talked about his older brother after he died, how "he was forgotten, as if he never existed".
That something that could never be told in his sleep may symbolize Folarin's own distance from his sons, it was - as he saw it - the necessary outter layer of hardened masculinity required in the politically unstable Nigeria of the 90's. Yet in the same scene Folarin tells his son that his own father was wrong in thinking that the only thing he could be is a provider.
As the waves are slowly rolling onto the shore, the eldest son asks his often absent father, "Daddy, if you say that you love us and God loves us, then does that mean that people who love us are always far away?"
The father fell silent. He did not know what to reply.
The tone is masterfully crafted but never forced. Director Akinola Davies Jr. Is gentle in his style, inviting us into the emotional side of his world through beautiful use of close shots - the camera often lingers on dad's eyes, his pronounced frown and subtle expressions suggesting pain and longing. Other times, the camera waywardly dances around, accompanied by droning and intermittent piano notes with playful reverberations that, in my mind, signifies a slow reconstruction of a memory. It often pans to the contrasting color and decay in the streets, then to the sky, where a group of circling birds would follow the father and his sons throughout the film, never quite leaving us at ease.
The subtlety of the cinematography somewhat clashes with its predictible tragedy at the end, yet the tone of the film is simply hypnotizing, and the chemistry between father and sons keep us invested all the way to the end. The oncoming death is strongly hinted, quite literally through multiple shots of lingering birds in the sky that never fail to draw Remi's and Akin's attention. As the film is drawn loosely from director's own experiences, I couldn't help but think that this was a love letter to his own father.
In this sense, the film acts as a "slow recognition" - as Jason Ryle mentions in the official TIFF synopsis - of the often absent father through the eyes of his sons. "The difficult work of seeing someone clearly, perhaps for the first time, and finding something in them more profound than expected".
The father's impenetrable appearance is gradually pierced and he opens up as the day goes on, for what seems like the first time in his life, to his own sons.
One particular scene comes to mind, when they reach the beach and Folarin (the father) tells his eldest son the story of his own childhood, when his older brother drowned and how years later he had dreamt him in his sleep, always waking up at the moment that his dead brother was trying to tell him something. Folarin was then saddened by how no one talked about his older brother after he died, how "he was forgotten, as if he never existed".
That something that could never be told in his sleep may symbolize Folarin's own distance from his sons, it was - as he saw it - the necessary outter layer of hardened masculinity required in the politically unstable Nigeria of the 90's. Yet in the same scene Folarin tells his son that his own father was wrong in thinking that the only thing he could be is a provider.
As the waves are slowly rolling onto the shore, the eldest son asks his often absent father, "Daddy, if you say that you love us and God loves us, then does that mean that people who love us are always far away?"
The father fell silent. He did not know what to reply.
Maybe one of the most meaningful episodes in Black Mirror, at least to me. It's a simple idea, but I couldn't help myself and teared up a few times. Paul Giamatti was a great choice for a protagonist.
This episode raises a few questions: Is delving into memories desirable? Can it be harmful, or can it help us heal? I don't think there's a definitive answer, and in fact I would argue that delving into a memory in such a literal sense - as shown in this episode - is borderline dangerous. Maybe some things are better left unsaid or unseen. Human memory isn't very reliable, and the more years pass the more the memories change and the more they strip down to their essentials, but these essentials are really modified versions of actual events, often romanticized. And I think it's good that we forget or that we romanticize the past, it's a coping mechanism, it helps us move on.
I wouldn't dare spoil the ending, because it's... well, painful.
For some reason a quote from the first volume of Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" came to my mind when I was writing this review, it encapsulates the feeling I had while watching "Eulogy". It's what I call the "heartstrings that yearn to be plucked like a harp" quote:
"This was not to say, however, that she did not long, at times, for some greater change, that she did not experience some of those exceptional moments when one thirsts for something other than what is, and when those who, through lack of energy or imagination, are unable to generate any motive power in themselves, cry out, as the clock strikes or the postman knocks, for something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when the heartstrings, which contentment has silenced, like a harp laid by, yearn to be plucked and sounded again by some hand, however rough, even if it should break them; when the will, which has with such difficulty won the right to indulge without let or hindrance in its own desires and woes, would gladly fling the reins into the hands of imperious circumstance, however cruel." (pp. 160-161)
This episode raises a few questions: Is delving into memories desirable? Can it be harmful, or can it help us heal? I don't think there's a definitive answer, and in fact I would argue that delving into a memory in such a literal sense - as shown in this episode - is borderline dangerous. Maybe some things are better left unsaid or unseen. Human memory isn't very reliable, and the more years pass the more the memories change and the more they strip down to their essentials, but these essentials are really modified versions of actual events, often romanticized. And I think it's good that we forget or that we romanticize the past, it's a coping mechanism, it helps us move on.
I wouldn't dare spoil the ending, because it's... well, painful.
For some reason a quote from the first volume of Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" came to my mind when I was writing this review, it encapsulates the feeling I had while watching "Eulogy". It's what I call the "heartstrings that yearn to be plucked like a harp" quote:
"This was not to say, however, that she did not long, at times, for some greater change, that she did not experience some of those exceptional moments when one thirsts for something other than what is, and when those who, through lack of energy or imagination, are unable to generate any motive power in themselves, cry out, as the clock strikes or the postman knocks, for something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when the heartstrings, which contentment has silenced, like a harp laid by, yearn to be plucked and sounded again by some hand, however rough, even if it should break them; when the will, which has with such difficulty won the right to indulge without let or hindrance in its own desires and woes, would gladly fling the reins into the hands of imperious circumstance, however cruel." (pp. 160-161)