Modern Deprivations

In what almost certainly is a blog record, we have our first straight A of the year before the end of January.

ACASA, MY HOME (A) - This Romanian tale of two parents raising nine children off the grid on the outskirts of Bucharest plays like a mix of "The Wolfpack" and last year's "Honeyland," and it's better than both of those documentaries. The father is that classic mix of eccentric and abusive, and the mother is subservient. 

The children are like feral moppets gorging on nature. They sleep on the floor with chickens and pigs, and they rely on outsiders who donate clothes and toys, but their daily outings along the reedy delta seem to be truly exuberant experiences. They even have a hideout to go to whenever Child Services makes one of its periodic visits.

One of those visits results in a relocation to a city shelter. As Roma, they are treated like second-class welfare recipients. The children miss their natural playground and soon fall victim to the lures of modern culture, like cell phones and video games. The oldest boy finds a girlfriend and is soon talking smack to the old man. When removed from their natural habitat, the kids exhibit sharper sides of their personalities and insecurities.  

Director Radu Ciorniciuc has a goldmine of sociological insights to juggle here. However, nothing is black and white. It's not necessarily the case that the kids are better off in the wilds, immunized from 21st century evils. The parents themselves are rather sickly (the father has diabetes), and the children are not only poorly nourished but also illiterate and socially retarded. And we see a good amount of empathy and good deeds out of both the Child Services representatives and the government officials overseeing the construction of a gaudy nature preserve smack along the family's compound. 

Ciorniciuc really makes no judgments here, and that is endlessly refreshing. He offers up no facile takeaways, but instead embeds his camera so snugly into the family's existence that it takes a while to be amazed at how intimate yet invisible his presence is in the mix. He makes no false steps while crafting a quiet masterpiece.

NOTTURNO (B) - This is borderline war porn and should probably be downgraded to mere fetishism, but oh, how gorgeous are these scenes from Gianfranco Rosi depicting life among the ruins in Iraq, Syria, Kurdistan and Lebanon. Parking his camera in one place and either making or waiting for the light to be just right, Rosi unspools a series of unrelated vignettes, one more mesmerizing than the other.

There is no narration or on-screen identifiers, so most people will either have to spot the clues in context or just go clueless about where we are at a given time. Rosi at times mixes heart-wrenching visuals with absurdist shots of everyday ordinary life. 

Some scenes in particular are mesmerizing. We watch children in art-therapy sessions, including a boy with a stutter, describing horrific crimes against humanity by ISIS. Adults in a psychiatric facility rehearse a play based on the horrors of war. A couple in love share a hookah on a rooftop as gunfire rattles in the far distance, before he heads off to the streets to sing the praises of Mohammed. A young man paddles along the shiny surface of water in the middle of the night as oil-well fires glow in the background. A colorless prison yard comes magically to life as a parade of men in orange jumpsuits slowly spill out of a doorway, like dye leaching out onto the screen.

It may bother you that such manmade and godly beauty are employed to convey the depths of human desperation. Or maybe it's a decent way to get you to pay attention.

BONUS TRACK

From "Notturno," the haunting "Mawtini":