I’ll admit - I mostly watched this film because I needed a place to charge my phone. I did not find one in the theater though, because duh.
I think this might be one of those European Art Films that people make fun of occasionally. The film follows a young Romanian man, Stefan, living in Brussels, who encounters a Chinese-Belgian doctorate in mosses named Shuxiu. Even though there is technically a story, the film isn’t really narrative driven. It instead focuses on atmospheric scenes in cities juxtaposed with those in nature, filled with background noises that place you right there with the characters.
I can totally understand why some people would make fun of this purposefully slow moving, meditative movie. The main characters don’t meet until around halfway through because there are a lot of Shots of Different Things. My sparsely attended viewing was punctuated with the gentle snoring of someone behind me. But I get what Bas Devos is going for. This film is like viewing the chance encounter of two individuals through a microscope, like Shuxiu examining her mosses in the lab. You are meant to take in the beauty of the surroundings, and the tenderness in every small gesture, and not necessarily focus on the future. Here is about appreciating a liminal space even if it won’t last forever - so it has an apt title! Luckily the movie has beautiful scenery, otherwise I don’t know if everything else alone would carry it through.
Random, non review thoughts I had while watching.
— I remember more high school French than I thought.
— I don’t know if I would trust a random white man’s soup!! That’s just me though.