Ever since Thoreau published “Walden” in 1854, the eponymous pond has taken on a life far more metaphysical than geographic, appropriated by writers wanting to give a name to their own special place where life at some point in the past had the potential for time-stopping splendid isolation. In Czech director Bojena Horackova’s “Walden,” a lake in Lithuania named by the characters after Thoreau’s book is but one of many recognizable elements suffusing this low-key memory film, composed like a palimpsest where all influences are detectable.
Episodically constructed with conscious tips of the hat to Jonas Mekas, Eric Rohmer, Ingmar Bergman and Sharunas Bartas, the film has a quiet pull, yet the lack of chemistry between characters plus the piecemeal storytelling leave the viewer in customary admiration of co-dp Agnès Godard’s masterful framing without connecting to their emotions. , both as a teenager in early 1989 Lithuania, just before the collapse of communism,...
Episodically constructed with conscious tips of the hat to Jonas Mekas, Eric Rohmer, Ingmar Bergman and Sharunas Bartas, the film has a quiet pull, yet the lack of chemistry between characters plus the piecemeal storytelling leave the viewer in customary admiration of co-dp Agnès Godard’s masterful framing without connecting to their emotions. , both as a teenager in early 1989 Lithuania, just before the collapse of communism,...
- 8/12/2020
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
Set in Lithuania at the tail end of Communist rule, Bojena Horackova’s “Walden” offers a bittersweet look at a group of youths on two sides of a generational change.
Selected as a part of Cannes’ Acid sidebar and making its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, the film follows its withdrawn protagonist Jana across two timelines – both as a 17-year-old who falls in with a roguish crowd as she prepares to go west on a student visa, and then as middle-aged woman who has returned to her native city after spending 30 years in France.
Both narrative strands move forward with the limpid focus of a short story, and both culminate at a secluded lakefront retreat Jana’s rakish teenage boyfriend calls Walden.
“It’s classic structure, showing one character at two different points,” Horackova tells Variety. “But I liked that both took place around the lake… I was...
Selected as a part of Cannes’ Acid sidebar and making its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, the film follows its withdrawn protagonist Jana across two timelines – both as a 17-year-old who falls in with a roguish crowd as she prepares to go west on a student visa, and then as middle-aged woman who has returned to her native city after spending 30 years in France.
Both narrative strands move forward with the limpid focus of a short story, and both culminate at a secluded lakefront retreat Jana’s rakish teenage boyfriend calls Walden.
“It’s classic structure, showing one character at two different points,” Horackova tells Variety. “But I liked that both took place around the lake… I was...
- 8/10/2020
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
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