An elderly man and his young granddaughter are driven to the countryside and left there with a coffin containing the body of a relative. They make their was cross country to a final resting place, encountering locals and setbacks along the way. I really liked this one alot, but it is difficult to articulate why.
The two rarely talk, but have a sweet, close relationship of knowing looks and gestures. Some of the silent moments between them, and the long dialogue free sequences, unexpectedly reminded me of a the work of Sylvain Chamet - especially the introverted, contemplative feel of The Illusionist. In fact a few times it occured to me that I could imagine this as a shot for shot remake of an animated feature - it had certain animated feature qualities - a clearly laid out plot of a simple quirky task with lots of time spent with the main characters and a long string of interesting minor ones which often dominate the scenes they are in. The coffin, although an inanimate object, is the driving force of the plot so is often shown centre frame.
I liked how the two were so motivated yet stoic in allowing the characters they run into to mould their story. Most of the minor characters seem to barely notice the two of them there, they are always busy dealing with other stuff so hardly figure in their day - which is a nice touch I thought. Also the way it was shot looked like it would lend itself well to animation. It was not atall urgent, often static, which allowed the sweet, gradual nature of the film to take over you slowly. There are lots of nice wide shots of the beautiful landscape.
There were some nice highlights. The ending was emblematic and arresting. Once thier task is complete and their journey over, grabndpa leaves her behind by scaling a tall wire fence that she can not climb. I think this is him metaohorically finally going onto the next life - joining the buried body. There is a really good scene from the inside of a truck with the radio playing someone's thoughts on mortality and the happy fate of the unborn millions, whilst it drives along a barely lit road at night. There are individual people, with the unmistakable look of unsettled refugees, walking past in the opposite direction carrying bags (probably containing the remnants of thier lives) all the while jixtaposed with upbeat classical music playing. It's the kind of scene that could form the basis of an essay all on it's own.
This is a lovely, heartfelt story of a highly personal, important journey, which asks many questions on a much larger scale. It reminded me somewhat of Nebraska and one of Lynch's masterpieces Straight Story.
4 out of 5
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