The Loneliest Planet
March 2013
Writer/director Julia Loktev’s strange, somewhat disturbing and evidently semi-improvised drama turns out to be a stark study of relationships set against a backdrop of seriously unfamiliar countryside (it’s actually Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains, but the ‘script’ fails to properly mention that, leaving you thinking it’s Mexico or Mongolia or wherever).
A cocky pair of young engaged lovers, Alex and Nica (Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg, neither properly named for ages onscreen) are on a walking tour through Eastern Europe, and we watch them go about their rambling, randy business for some 50 minutes or so before a traumatic event leads to them reevaluating their bond, their lives and their place within this mysterious universe, all with an absence of dialogue and exposition that’s sometimes intriguing and daring, and sometimes all a bit irksome. A major arthouse hit, this one’s guaranteed to divide audiences, as some will swear by its penetrating psychological edge and lyrical cinematic beauty – and some will just be swearing at it.
Rated M. Opens on March 21.