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Rating: Among the most intense, bold, neuronally destabilizing, and subliminally cathartic works presented in the past decade (and millennium), with modest room for doubt, is the fifth feature film resulting from the arduous work of the young Lithuanian filmmaker Sharunas Bartas.
Internationally titled "Few Of Us" (curiously noting that for once, the tricoloric transliteration proves more effective and fitting to the imaginative material contained therein than the corresponding English-forme), this stoic film, dating back to 1996, was courageously (rap)presented at Cannes in the "sidebar" section [where, in my personal opinion, the most delightful works of the croisette's patinated film festival often found asylum/collocation] vaguely disrespectfully called "Un Certain Regard".
Entirely shot (strictly adhering to what the filmmaker demanded to be shown through the sparse and vivid images) in the naturally lush and imperviously marvelous Siberian land, the film is configured as an authentic, (at times) exhausting, (often) redemptive eye-delirium where, in a primary (distracted) scrutiny-instance, it seems as if nothing significant happens; a filmic structure dominated and permeated by an almost paradoxical stillness: indescribable endless long takes filled with deafening silences, characterized by sporadic, seemingly meaningless gestural appearances and repetitions resulting from the imperceptible (de)humanities represented therein; all of which is externalized and carried to its extreme and regenerating (or dangerous) consequences.
It goes without saying: there is no overarching plot structure; consistently with this radical stylistic-structural choice, there is (obviously) not even the slightest hint of any form of dialogue, only some unexpected, sudden, unintelligible but significant human-guttural emission that audibly uproots our captivated, ergo dumbfounded, eyelid perception.
A sort of exhausting, orchestrated yet natural cine-primitivity that initially leaves (the first quarter hour seems to last an actual eternity) inhibited and, in the second instance, completely silenced and frozen.
Curious, eh?
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By MartinVenator
A slow and prolonged Zen exercise, for restless souls, among whom I finally count myself.
For lovers of Dersu Uzala, a must-see, sans doute, indeed.
