by ·Comments Off on Moosa Lane (2022, Anita Mathal Hopland)

Oops, we picked a bum closing film… should’ve caught Hummingbirds on Thursday, and gone home after Mariachi on Sunday. Living Hour was good at least – a chill 5-piece from Winnipeg. Norwegian-Pakistani-Danish filmmaker visits her dad’s family in Pakistan over 15 years, watching her cousins grow up and start their own families and/or die young from cancer. Weak attempt to universalize the story via poetic narration about othering and inbetweenness, really it’s just home movies.

Hopland has previously made her own variation on The Road Movie with On the Edge of Freedom, a portrait of Russian stunt jumpers that’s been described as “a one hour compilation of a bunch of YouTube videos.” The producer worked on a Mads Brügger movie I haven’t seen, and the editor also did Venus.

by ·Comments Off on Dukhtar (2014, Afia Nathaniel)

Too-young girl in the Pakistan mountains is going to be married off to her father’s rival as a peace offering, so her mom takes her on the run, getting help from a dreamy guy who drives the world’s most awesome truck. Seriously, I wish we hadn’t watched this on streaming so I could show you this truck. The husband/father’s crew and the rival’s crew both search for them, both of them all pissed off.

Lovely bright colors clearly, brightly photographed. Aside from that and the cultural interest, the plotting and editing and music all seemed highly familiar from genre flicks I watched on cable in the 1990’s.