Vía negativa

Summary Somewhere undefined, half-way between empty office spaces and abandoned shopping mall, a young man drops to the ground in slow motion. Walls rot, the mail piles up behind closed doorsteps. Peering through window panes, another young man observes an enigmatic ballet as two elegant young women invert the urban desert and make it into a playground for their subversive imagination. Under cover of re-appropriating the deserted apartments and offices, they engage in strange poetico-political acts, part situationist, part Oulipian. They slip papers and pink, yellow, and green chips under the doors, sowing existential formulas on clothes tags... Negative Path's minimal intrigue amounts to the boy's initiation to the rites and mysteries of the secret society, and the playful seduction it allows for. Script and direction work through subtraction : of drama, of weightiness, of any kind of explanation to the situation. A strangely worrying end-of-the-world atmosphere pervades the empty city, but the catastrophe has already taken place. A few signs hint at its nature : an economy in full and definitive decrepitude, like a collapsological extrapolation of the repeated crises that have struck Argentina. The film's singular beauty owes to the contrast between the portrait of a world in the terminal stages of its collapse, and the supreme elegance, the high-fashion care with which Alan Martin Segal tailors his shots, sets up the frame, lighting, and sounds. But don't let that trick you : under their fun and chic appearance, the negative path taken by the film and its characters is of the highest political consequence. Let the world run to its end to regain life. Create nothingness, then give shape to nothingness. Undo the world, empty it, and make of your life a form moving through free space. Elegance as the ultimate resistance. View more details

Vía negativa

Directed : Alan Martín Segal

Written : Alan Martín Segal

Stars : Jairo Agustina D'Alessandro Ailín Grad Koichi Kairiyama

4.9

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Apr 30, 2022

Countries of origin : Argentina South Korea

Language : Mende

Production companies : Filmy Wiktora

Summary Somewhere undefined, half-way between empty office spaces and abandoned shopping mall, a young man drops to the ground in slow motion. Walls rot, the mail piles up behind closed doorsteps. Peering through window panes, another young man observes an enigmatic ballet as two elegant young women invert the urban desert and make it into a playground for their subversive imagination. Under cover of re-appropriating the deserted apartments and offices, they engage in strange poetico-political acts, part situationist, part Oulipian. They slip papers and pink, yellow, and green chips under the doors, sowing existential formulas on clothes tags... Negative Path's minimal intrigue amounts to the boy's initiation to the rites and mysteries of the secret society, and the playful seduction it allows for. Script and direction work through subtraction : of drama, of weightiness, of any kind of explanation to the situation. A strangely worrying end-of-the-world atmosphere pervades the empty city, but the catastrophe has already taken place. A few signs hint at its nature : an economy in full and definitive decrepitude, like a collapsological extrapolation of the repeated crises that have struck Argentina. The film's singular beauty owes to the contrast between the portrait of a world in the terminal stages of its collapse, and the supreme elegance, the high-fashion care with which Alan Martin Segal tailors his shots, sets up the frame, lighting, and sounds. But don't let that trick you : under their fun and chic appearance, the negative path taken by the film and its characters is of the highest political consequence. Let the world run to its end to regain life. Create nothingness, then give shape to nothingness. Undo the world, empty it, and make of your life a form moving through free space. Elegance as the ultimate resistance. View more details

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Apr 30, 2022

Countries of origin : Argentina South Korea

Language : Mende

Production companies : Filmy Wiktora

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Half the Sky

Half the Sky

In Rabat, Jocelyne, a 28-year-old French teacher, is married to Abdellatif Laâbi, a 29-year-old Moroccan poet, with whom she has two children. Abdellatif, director of the opposition magazine Souffles, creates with his friend, Abraham Serfaty, the clandestine revolutionary movement, Ilal-Amam. In January 1972, Abdellatif and Abraham are arrested. They are, however, freed one month after the birth of Qods, Abdellatifs daughter. But, in March 1972, Abdellatif is arrested once again. Abraham escapes from the police and goes underground. Evelyne, Abrahams sister is arrested and savagely tortured. Freed, she tells Jocelyne that she was called a dirty Jew by the police. This insult reminds Jocelyne of a terrible family secret: her father, member of the Vichy militia, participated in the arrest of Jews in Lyon. Jocelyne decides to be the secret link between Abraham and the prisoners and she mobilizes with the families. In 1973, Abdellatif is sentenced to ten years in prison! In 1974, Abraham is arrested, which enables the police to discover the letters that Jocelyne wrote him. Arrested, her passport is confiscated and she is taken to a secret detention center where she ends up admitting that she wrote the letters. Freed, she notices that Qods growth has stopped. The doctors prescribe tests in France. But the embassy refuses to give her a new passport because of a secret deal with the police! In 1977, Abraham is sentenced to life imprisonment! The prisoners go on a hunger strike. One prisoner, Saïda Menebhi, dies. The fight pays off: in 1980, the families can visit the prisoners outside the visiting room. But this visit reminds Jocelyne that she must wait two more years before Abdellatif is released. Despondent, she takes comfort with friends in Casablanca. The next day, in a spectacular turn of events, she learns that Abdellatif had been released the night before!

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