For her first foray into dramatic fiction filmmaking, video installation artist and documentary filmmaker Julia Loktev met 650 actresses before picking newcomer Luisa Williams to play her never-named heroine. “The film rests on her face,” Loktev said, and it’s true. A young woman, frail, beautiful, but also excruciatingly withdrawn and isolated, arrives in an unnamed city. DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT initially reveals nothing about her plans, instead following her towards a mysterious rendezvous. Photographed in brilliant handheld style by Benoît Debie (who shot Gaspar Noé’s IRRÉVERSIBLE [TFF 2002]), the film’s documentary tension draws you in irresistibly. But as harrowingly accurate as the film feels, its rigor is more abstract and spiritual than psychological or social. By the end, Williams’ haunted, saint-like face attains the power of a Bressonhero or Dreyer’s Joan of Arc. –LG (U.S./Germany, 2006, 90m) Preceded by DINOF CELESTIALBIRDS (d. Elias Merhige, U.S., 2006, 14m)
Interview with Julia Loktev, dir.Paul interviews Julia Loktev, director of Day Night Day Night. (9/3/06, Telluride Film Festival)
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