Together, Alone

There is a certain solemnity in this portrayal of nature: as a camera operator, Van de Wiele gets down on his knees in some of the images, filming the plants from below and letting their crowns stand out against a bright blue sky to which they stretch their fingers, as if—if left unpruned—they would continue to grow into eternity, closer and closer to their nourishing sun. A favour is done to the carnations here; framed individually, they are momentarily freed from mass production, a space in which a flower becomes the flower.

“There’s a reason why everybody hates Batman in those movies,” comments one of the titular protagonists in Omar Chowdhury’s BAN♡ITS. Set in a liminal space between Bangladesh and India, the film follows a group of self-proclaimed “destitutes” who rob the rich to give to the poor and are obsessed with Heath Ledger, because “he died for his art.” Inhabiting a lawless limbo where radical credos coexist with state-sanctioned anarchic stances these outlaws are as porous and opaque as Chowdhury’s film itself.

Foreignness always operates in varying degrees and can easily be internalised as self-exoticisation or through voluntary and involuntary alienation. Nevertheless, watching a film about your home country through a foreign gaze is always a startling experience. The images appear uncannily alien, akin to a non-native speaking in your mother tongue: no matter how impeccable their linguistic knowledge and proficiency, their intonations inevitably inhabit an absence, turning familiar words into strange, peculiar objects.

Loveboard speaks to an era in which relationships are increasingly preserved through digital archives and the large amount of digital detritus this generates. Our personal troves of images have grown significantly in recent decades. The availability and cost of film stock constrained people to choose what to archive, and therefore, to also curate the image of their past. In this sense, digital media is counterintuitive, even antithetical to curatorship: it has the ability to seemingly conserve everything, including moments that seem utterly inconsequential, even banal, that are valued only in retrospect (if at all).

Lounging on a small bed, Chantal Akerman’s posture seems casual and relaxed at first glance, but the repetitive tilts of her head—to the left and then back to center—contrasting with the smooth glide of the camera suggest otherwise. Restlessness is in the air, yet before we can discern it, the image is already on the move, retracing its steps for a second time.

Mars, Oman alternates between sympathy for the scientists and scenes that underline their blindness caused by the excitement for space, leading to a colonial dilemma. With exploration, there’s always an admirable desire for progress, a thirst to venture where no man has been. History has taught us, however, that this is liable to corruption, and progress has much to do with politics. This dynamic between innocent dreams and obtuse greed lingers throughout the film, making you wonder what the astronaut’s position is in the goal of conquering Mars.