LA PALISIADA

Philip Sotnychenko’s exceptional debut crystallizes an increasingly visible interest in returning to the nineties through a cold, distant lens – the nineties being that very decade of post-communist transition. This theme permeates both the narrative and the aesthetics of La Palisiada — much of the film’s cinematography imitates the quality of a VHS tape, whether we’re talking about re-enactments (a fetishistic object of Eastern-bloc cinema) or about the fly-on-the-wall scenes that capture some everyday moments in the lives of its main characters, a duo of law enforcement agents investigating a murder in the province. There’s something about this film that recalls the cinema of Jia Zhang-ke, particularly Mountains May Depart (2015), not so much in regards to its theme, but in terms of the dreamy way that time settles within the frame, the camera engaged in an observation of reality so minute and patient that it verges on the supra-real, the transcendental. (Flavia Dima)