Locarno 2025 or of understanding movies

Of talking mushrooms, dancing excavators, slaughterhouses, underwater bombs and low-resolution images

I recently had the chance to visit the Locarno Film Festival. Among the films I saw, there was a surprising amount that felt especially cryptic in hiding their meaning from the viewers. Meaning is often something very personal, very intimate, that is hard to talk about. As David Lynch once said: “It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It's better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else.” But given that all of those films were from the two main competitions (Internazionale and Cineasti del Presente) and the discussions I had with friends, I felt the urge to meander a bit about what it means for me to understand a film.

Linije želje, Dir: Dane Komljen, ©Dart Film

It started relatively late into the festival when, against better judgement, I decided to watch Dane Komljen’s film “Linije želje / Desire Lines”. The reviews from the first screening were abysmal, but the timing of my previous plans as well as my curiosity got the better of me. I kind of hoped for a movie that was extreme, maybe even offensive, so I could get a bit angry at it. In some sense it was extreme, just not in the way I expected.

So I sat there with the small audience, in uncomfortable chairs, curious what the film would bring us. Starting off rather interestingly, a man stalking another man, ending up in a park full of gay men seeking sexual adventures. Closing with our main character seemingly being penetrated by a rock. At least that is insinuated, all we see is a bloody anus. But that’s basically it as far as extreme scenes go. After an eerie phone call that makes us question Branko’s sanity, he just begins to walk. This goes on for quite a bit, even passing through a wall, until he meets other people in the forest. He joins them, and together they lie around, speak in extremely slow and sombre tones about how they talked with mushrooms that communicate with roots that connect them all. After over 100 min it was over, leaving those that stayed until the end very confused and unsure about what they just witnessed.

I am still trying to make sense of it. Was it about the dying of nature, the working situation, or the end of the USSR and the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina? Maybe it was aliens or the alienating feeling of not belonging to the society as a gay person. Or just drugs? But next to me on an intellectual level not understanding the film, I also felt it didn’t give me anything to understand it on an emotional level, as the film shows next to no emotion. It felt more like a collection of interesting ideas, such as connecting queerness with the lifestyle of societal dropouts. But even with trying, I simply couldn’t make sense of it. Still, it was this film that even set off this whole questioning of what understanding a movie means. Because whenever I watch a film that I don't understand, I first try to find the fault within myself: wasn't I paying enough attention, am I missing some background information, or am I just not smart enough? This is simply because, ideally, every artist and every piece of art wants to tell us something.

Nu mă lăsa să mor, Dir: Andrei Epure

It was all the more interesting, as on the same night I also chose to watch Andrei Epure’s “Nu mă lăsa să mor”. A similarly cryptic experience, with people walking around slowly, and few things plot-related happening. A woman emerges from a cave, secretly hurries towards the city, rings at a doorbell, and dies next to the entrance. Her neighbour, a guilt-struck Maria, thinking she might be responsible for her death, takes on the organisation of the funeral as well as caring for the two dogs. For most of its early runtime it plays like a dry comedy, and what really is going on is hard to know. Maria going from person to person, each being strange and unhelpful in her task. And even as it goes on, the plot part feels cryptic. An image of two excavators seemingly dancing appears without context or explanation. But here, it didn’t matter, as everything came naturally, and without thinking too much, it connected with me. Of course, when I later thought about it, more and more details made sense and connections appeared. But the important part was this initial gut reaction I had. It was Bresson who once said, “I'd rather people feel a film before understanding it. I'd rather feelings arise before intellect.” And I fully agree. It is hard to articulate sometimes why a cryptic film connected, but as long as you feel it, that might just be enough.

Dry Leaf, Dir: Alexandre Koberidze, 
©Alexandre Koberidze, New Matter Films

A similar thing happened with the next film I want to talk about (funnily enough seen in the same awful chairs of L’altra sala as “Linije želje”): “Dry Leaf”. As written in another blog entry, I am a big fan of this film. The three-hour odyssey of a father looking for his daughter but getting lost in the beauty of the Georgian countryside and its football fields connected with me. And all this in that incredibly low resolution. Of course, here we are talking about another form of cryptic, as what technically is happening is easy: two people looking for a missing person. But that is not the focus, but rather the how and what the meaning of this search is. Interestingly enough, here the feeling and intellectually analysing it came simultaneously. Maybe it is since the plot in itself isn’t the centre but more the packaging in these pixelated images. In a funny way, it all immediately made sense.

Affection Affection, Dir: Alexia Walther &
 Maxime Matray, ©Ecce Films

The direct opposite thing happened in the next film, “Affection Affection”. I went there immediately after “Dry Leaf” and was once again not sure what to think or, more importantly, what to feel. The story is loosely reminiscent of classical small-town detective stories but subverts them by having the main character be a worker at the mayor’s office and not a classical investigator. After an old water bomb goes off, people begin disappearing and strange things happen. She stumbles through the events as they unfold, struggling to keep her own life together. The mystery here sadly derives from an overly cryptic script that is content with just throwing out breadcrumbs instead of real clues. The main thing being, that there is no main mystery. For most of it we don’t even know what we are trying to find out, eradicating any sense of urgency the film seemingly tries to convey. Of the films I've talked about so far, this is the most conventional, stylistically speaking. No low-resolution images, no people walking in slow motion. But it is the one I almost struggle the most with to fully grasp. It is probably that this feels the least voluntary cryptic. The film of course wants to have a mystery but never manages to both establish and then unveil it, leaving me confused and unsure what to feel.

The last of the bunch that made me question my understanding of films was “Olivia” by Sofía Petersen. Once again, we have very little plot: Olivia lives alone with her father in the mountains. As he one day doesn’t return from work, she begins looking for him, journeying to the slaughterhouse. Slow-paced, we bear witness to astonishingly beautiful images of nature, contrasted by the killings taking place at the slaughterhouse. While being structurally similar to “Linije želje” in a sense that it basically is just one person walking, Olivia let me connect more on an emotional level, allowed me to understand it better. It still is very cryptic, with few words spoken, a time loop being suggested later on, and a lot of the images only making partial sense at first glance. But it still is recognisable as a coming-of-age story, a narrative about belonging, family and loneliness. That is where I would say the biggest difference to “Linije želje” or “Affection Affection” lies. Those made it hard to even feel them, let alone understand.

Olivia, Dir: Sofía Petersen

In the end, understanding doesn’t even mean the same for all films. I know some movies where I get the plot and characters but don’t know what the film really wanted. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that we don’t need to make perfect sense of everything to understand a work of art; sometimes the reaction we have to it, the feeling, is more essential than what our brains can make of it. And it is of course very personal, as we all react differently and thus feel different. Maybe I am only justifying being ignorant, but as Lynch once said, “[…]. and they become worried if even for one small moment something happens that is not understood by everyone. But what's so fantastic is to get down into areas where things are abstract and where things are felt, or understood in an intuitive way that, you can't, you know, put a microphone to somebody at the theatre and say 'Did you understand that?' but they come out with a strange, fantastic feeling and they can carry that, and it opens some little door or something that's magical and that's the power that film has”. And I agree. Sometimes I look at a painting and almost feel like crying and I can’t immediately explain why. And It’s the same with films and that’s also what makes watching so wonderful. Maybe we all should all try to understand them with our hearts first and intellect second.

All films seen at the Locarno 2025 Film Festival