North Caucasus

Film: Tesnota/Closeness (2017, Kantemir Balagov)
Books: The Mountain and the Wall, Bride and Groom by Alisa Ganieva

One film, two books and a girl in the middle.

In terms of a personal timeline, the movie came first in 2017.

Tesnota stopped me in my tracks. I had to breathe. Take a moment. Then, I saw it again.

Tesnota uses a real-life kidnapping incident to depict how intimate relationships within a close-knit community are impacted. The film marks the striking directorial debut of Kantemir Balagov (only 27 in 2017) and is set within the North Caucasus city of Nalchik in the late 1990s and depicts Jewish and Kabardian communities who live side by side. 24-year-old Ilana (Darya Zhovner in a stand-out performance) works in her father Avi’s (Artem Tsypin) garage as a mechanic and is close to her brother David (Veniamin Kats). On the night of David’s engagement, her family’s celebrations are halted when they discover that David and his fiancee are kidnapped and a hefty ransom is demanded. The kidnapping impacts Ilana’s family both financially and emotionally as they belong to a Jewish community who decide to raise the ransom money themselves and not get the police involved. To complicate matters, Ilana’s family does not approve of her relationship with a local Kabardian boy. Ilana in turn has to hide her Jewish identity from her boyfriend’s friends. The ethnic tensions coupled with her parent’s financial decisions further isolate Ilana.

A kidnapping, a forbidden romance and boiling ethnic tensions make for a fiery debut. In addition, the depiction of events in a 4:3 aspect ratio makes for a claustrophobic experience. Hence, the need to breath. As an aside, the need to breathe is also a part of Balagov’s stellar second feature Beanpole.

A short time after seeing Tesnota came the girl who confirmed some of my questions about the film regarding the accurate depiction of the ethnic tensions. She deserves a longer story which I hope to tell one day but her words painted a similar picture of how things unfold in the film and the clash of cultures.

It has been a few years since I thought of the girl but her presence hovered over the pages of two books by Alisa Ganieva set in Dagestan. And indirectly, I kept thinking of Tesnota.

As a reference, Nalchik in Tesnota is 6-7 hours drive from Makhachkala, the capital city of Dagestan in The Mountain and the Wall. The book’s characters are of a different ethnicity and religious background from that shown in Tesnota. Yet, all these three works are different branches of the same tree. And that girl is also another branch of that same tree.

Reading reference:

1. Devika Girish’s insightful interview with Kantemir Balagov in Film Comment

2. Yelena Furman's review of Bridge and Groom

3. Alisa Ganieva: The Caucasus Chronicler by Ullekh NP

Best Films of 2017

Similar to 2016, global cinema in 2017 kept pace with current events and created works that reflected society. There were multiple films released in 2017 that covered the plight of refugees and the struggles they face (69 Minutes Of 86 Days, Aqerat, More, Human Flow, The Other Side of Hope, Reseba, Taste of Cement) while some films showed the harsh economic realities of our world (Félicité, The Florida Project, The Nothing Factory, Western). This year’s Cannes festival unveiled three timely films set in Russia that gave a glimpse into Russian society (A Gentle Creature, Closeness and Loveless). All three are very different films yet all look at the larger Russian society by highlighting the impact on a family/spouse when a male member is absent. In addition, there were new works from established master directors although Hong Sang-soo outpaced everyone else by releasing three films in one year, which is an accomplishment even by his prolific standards. Of the numerous worthy titles to choose from, this list is restricted to 17 films, all of which are 2017 titles.

1. Zama (Argentina co-production, Lucrecia Martel)

Lucrecia Martel’s long awaited cinematic return is a feast for the senses and brings a fresh perspective to the colonial life. Packed with delightful references to cinematic and literary characters ranging Godot to Kurtz to Aguirre and even the legendary Gabbar Singh. This is filmmaking of the highest order!

2. A Man of Integrity (Iran, Mohammad Rasoulof)

Rasoulof cleverly uses a single man’s struggles to depict larger issues around corruption and politics in society. The film is set in Iran but the story is universal.

3. Western (Germany/Bulgaria, Valeska Grisebach)

A smart variation of a traditional Western film genre that illustrates the east as the promised land for riches instead. The guns may be absent but horses and masculinity aren’t.

4. Life and Nothing More (Spain/USA, Antonio Méndez Esparza)

A remarkable and urgent film that gets at the core problems regarding racism in America. By using a single incident around a playground, the film shows the cycle of fear that leads to a violent reaction and subsequent excessive force by law officials.

5. Cocote (Dominican Republic co-production, Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias)

A creative blend of fiction and documentary which effortlessly mixes different film stocks (colour, black and white) and contains different camera styles, including an immersive 360-degree pan. The end result is a scrumptious film that hails the arrival of an exciting new voice in international cinema!

6. A Gentle Creature  (France, Sergei Loznitsa)

Loznitsa brings a sharp documentary eye in depicting the prison system in Russian society while layering the work with Kafkaesque notes, satire and even opera.

7. Closeness (Russia, Kantemir Balagov)

Based on a true story, Balagov nicely uses a 4:3 aspect ratio to box the screen in thereby showing the closeness and tension among different ethnicities in the Caucasus city of Nalchik.

8. Lover for a Day (France, Philippe Garrel)

A lovely mix of French New Wave and contemporary sensibilities.

9. The Nothing Factory (Portugal, Pedro Pinho)

Starts off as an absurd comedy, shifts gears to become a documentary and ends as a musical. The documentary portion of the film is brimming with ideas where the film looks at the end of capitalism and shutting down of factories across Europe. The film poses relevant questions about what work means in modern society.

10. Taste of Cement (Germany/Syria/Lebanon co-production, Ziad Kalthoum)

A poetic documentary that depicts the lives of Syrian workers who are working on high rise towers in Beirut. The documentary smartly interweaves the construction of the buildings in Beirut with the destruction of the workers’ homes back in Syria. The film also features some of the most inventive framing and camera movements of the year, including some dizzying views of Beirut.

Honourable mentions (alphabetical order):

Aqerat (Malaysia, Edmund Yeo)
Faces Places (France, JR/Agnès Varda)
Félicité (Senegal co-production, Alain Gomis)
Newton (India, Amit Masurkar)
On Body and Soul (Hungary, Ildikó Enyedi)
The Other Side of Hope (Finland, Aki Kaurismäki)
Wajib (Palestine co-production, Annemarie Jacir)