Liverpool (2008)

It's rather uncommon for me to be truly stunned by the way a movie is made. I mean: sadly, most films follow the beaten path of storytelling and cinematography. Liverpool, directed by Lisandro Alonso, definitively bears similarities with some contemporary movies (while watching it, I thought about Pedro Costa as well as Chantal Akerman), but there are a couple of things that makes it stand out. The first few images of the film takes us on board of a cargo ship. There's the automatized rhythm of the work and some moments of leisure. The ship is about to reach its port and a man in the crew is preparing to leave. In extremely long takes, we see him dress, collect his stuff. The scene is not filmed 'beautifully'. There's a plain room and a man is rummaging about his belongings. As he reaches the harbor we follow his slow-paced journey to what turns out to be his home village where is is to meet his mother. He plods around the small village and people recognize him. He's been out at sea for a long time. The encounter with his mother is not a glorious moment of home-coming. She is sick, and it's unclear whether she recognizes him. There's also what seems to be his daughter. In extremely minimalist scenes, their communication, mostly quiet, is captured. The quietness never leaves the film. Instead of words, there is the snowy, matter-of-fact landscape. There is beauty, yes, but the camera also registers the matter-of-fact landscapes and living environment of people who live in a poverty-stricken village. We see the protagonist, Farell, in very undramatic situations. He eats at a restaurant where he knows nobody, he goes to the small cantine in the village where some music is playing - in both these places, he is simply waiting. The lack of dialogue is paired with the observational, paired-down camera-work. As one reviewer put it: the places he visits looks like the edge of the world. The question that the film evokes is what kind of life this sense of isolation stems from.

Some reviewers have complained that the techniques applied in Liverpool are familiar elements of the art house film tradition, techniques that are to repel the masses, singling out the eager elite. Yes, there are risks in the kind of material dealt with here: the drinking male loner who heads out on a winding journey. It's just that Liverpool never seems to elicit the familiar reactions to this kind of material. There is no romanticism, no deep-going sadness, no elevation of loneliness. The major difference is, I think, the ending. I will not spoil it for you, but for me, it was what made this film stand out.