The Long Walk

Mattie Do's 2019 Lao film follows an old man living alone in the countryside. A ghost has been with him for years, and through her he can return fifty years, to the moment of his mother's death. The question is what that return achieves. The man wants to end pain, and the interventions he makes in the past change the present; the narrative does not explain the time travel technically and leaves the moral outcome to the viewer. Do is among the very few directors making films in Laos and this is her third feature. The narrative is slow, the dialogue sparse and the landscape photography takes wide space. The tone sits between horror and drama. Who it's for: those who like Southeast Asian independent cinema and slow horror. Who it's not for: viewers for whom death and euthanasia would sit heavily; the film places them at the centre.