Day Night Day Night, a film written and directed by Julia Loktev (who previously made the documentary Moment of Impact,) is an exercise in minimalistic story telling that is nonetheless compelling and hypnotic. Go see it!
An unnamed young girl (the wonderful Luisa Williams, a first-time actor,) comes to New York and is ensconced in a seedy hotel where she gets her instructions via cell phone. She is apparently going to detonate a bomb in Times Square the next day. She awaits further instructions while the camera lovingly captures the most mundane of her activities...brushing her teeth, sleeping fitfully, clipping her nails, shaving her legs. As in much of the film, Williams is observed in haunting and unsettling detail, her intense and ethnically ambiguous features glowing in the dim light.
Her instructors arrive, masked men of little speech, who train her in her movements, make her memorize her false identity, pick out the right clothes for her to wear. They make her pose, 60's insurgent style with an automatic rifle, for a poster.
No details emerge. They say nothing more than what's necessary; no small talk, no gestures of appreciation or comfort for the perpetrator of their goal. Who is she? Who are her instructors? What are the aims of the group they belong to? Why, indeed, does this quiet and self-effacing girl agree to die for a cause she apparently does not feel in her gut? She opened the film with the words "I have only one death. I want my death to be for you." For whom? Nothing is revealed.
In this section, the colors are as muted as the emotions are dampened. No music intrudes. The second part, in Times Square, is colorful , noisy and active, and the suspense builds as the girl wanders about, stopping in many places for a bite to eat, a dazed look on her face. Clearly this is not an angry or purposeful suicide bomber; her ambivalence shows through. Or is it just her general inability to deal with reality?
The lack of motive and the clearly drawn humanity of the bomber make us identify with her in ways that belie the horror she is about to unleash. And yet it is impossible to understand her; we watch, waiting, and want to scream out to her to not push that button.
I saw Day Night at a special showing at BAM (attended by star Williams, producer Melanie Judd and other staff,) which included a question-and-answer session with Williams after the show. An articulate and engaging speaker, she fleshed in many details about the filming of Day Night. Apparently Loktev auditioned 650 women for the role, and Williams, who'd missed the entire thing, emailed the director and requested a special audition. The rest, as they say, is history. Loktev emerges as a strong and dedicated director, a complete perfectionist whose attention to details in this film give it the power that more than compensate for its expositional mystery.
Opening today at the IFC Center in Manhattan.
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