Notturno

The documentary was shot over three years along the borders of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Kurdistan. There is no narrator, no date given, and mostly no statement of which country we are in. A mother goes to the cell where her son was killed. A group of children in therapy describe through drawings what they saw under the Islamic State. In a psychiatric hospital the patients rehearse a play. A boy hunts at night to keep his family. Gianfranco Rosi directs and shot it himself. Rosi's method is to stay a long time. The crew is small, there is one camera, and the shooting spreads over years, so that the scenes are recorded not as interviews but as time passing. The film's decision is not to show the war. There are no combat scenes and no explosions; the narrative stands in the daily life between the before and the after, and the violence exists only through its results. The section with the children's drawings is the hardest part and the only direct testimony. The image is very carefully made, and that caused argument. Some critics said the suffering was filmed too beautifully; Rosi defended the distance as deliberate. It screened in competition at the 2020 Venice film festival and was Italy's Oscar submission that year. Who it is for: viewers who follow observational documentary and films that refuse the language of news about the Middle East. Who it is not for: no context is given, it is hard to follow without a narrative, and the pace is very slow.