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Moment of truth >> Filmmaker Julia Loktev documents the fallout from her father's disabling accident by ANNIE ILKOW
Able to recite Pushkin but unable to roll himself over in bed, Leonid is conscious but requires the constant care of his wife Larisa. Without question a rewarding but difficult, often uncomfortable experience, the film illuminates the detailed texture of these people's lives forever changed in a single, absurd moment of destiny. The film challenges the audience to change our expectations by constantly refusing, as Larisa resolutely does, to be maudlin. Showing how Larisa cares for Leonid with humour, by getting him to dance with her, by singing to him, we see how mother and daughter practically demand that he respond to them--and he does. Realizing that the audience would have difficulty seeing the man instead of just a disabled body, Loktev elegantly sketches her father's personality in a sequence that captures the tragedy of a man "stuck between life and death." But the real subject of the film is Larisa, Loktev's mother. With Russian pragmatism and considerable strength, she appears at first to be just a no-nonsense, super-motivated, selfless wife. But juxtaposed with Larisa's labours are the ultra-frank conversations she has with her daughter on camera while lying in bed. These extremely moving scenes are unmistakably sincere--what has happened to them is beyond dramatic embellishment. The filmmaker captures some incredible moments here; for example, when she fearlessly asks whether her dad would want to live like this, to which her mother responds, "He used to say he wouldn't want to. But that was before... when he was him." Without narration, and utterly devoid of sentimentality, the film records the Loktevs' daily struggle for survival, but is at the same time a nuanced portrait of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As in Frederick Wiseman's films, the impact is conveyed by the slow accretion of details--the observed moments of a life assuming the weight of meaning in front of a camera. Moment of Impact screens Friday, September 4, 9:20am; Saturday, September 5, 3:40pm and Monday, September 7 at 5pm at the Parisien
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Every once in a while a film comes along that makes you realize what shite you've been watching. New York documentarist Julia Loktev is getting rave reviews for her feature-length documentary Moment of Impact--an utterly devastating film and a stark reminder of how powerful documentary can be. Shot over a period of several months, Moment of Impact is an unflinching, loving chronicle of her Russian immigrant parents and their daily life, 10 years after a severe head injury left her father seriously disabled.