Author: gffreviews

A deftly handled drama about recovery from trauma. Based on the life and account of a survivor of the Batalcan terrorist attack, One Year, One Night tells the story of Ramon and Celine, a couple who attended the gig that night, and who make their way through the next year processing what has happened to them.

Let me say from the get-go for anyone worried, there is nothing gratuitous about this film in the least. It does not focus on the events of that night, but on what it did to those that went through it. This is not a film with a lot of shown violence. Any flashbacks focus almost entirely on the reactions of survivors and how they coped in those critical moments.

Violence is depicted almost entirely though sound. Firstly, because this adds to the disorientation and incomplete perception Ramon and Celine had of what was happening around them, but secondly to contrast with music, which is shown throughout the film to be the sound of life, of creativity, of joy, of comfort, of engagement in living. Whether it is singing the soothing songs of childhood or letting go of fear on a crowded dancefloor, music is the sound of the being human, of being here.

In contrast to that, their trauma is the sound of an unplugged amp, the rattle of gunfire, the silence. And as they go through the next year, those sounds return as analogue for the characters’ inner emotional states. The unplugged amp representing the dissociation and paralysis that accompanies a panic attack. The hypervigilance that turns every shutting of the door, every thump of a bottle down on a table, into a gunshot. The deafening silence as we hold our breath and wait to see what comes next.

The morning after the attack tells you everything you need to know about how Ramon and Celine are processing what they’ve went through. Ramon sits down to play his guitar while Celine washes their clothes from the night before. She has went instantly into coping mode. She is taking care of everything that needs done, tidying up, doing the food shop, getting ready for work. It gives her a sense of purpose and control, and distances her from her actual feelings about the events by transforming everything into a series of items on her to-do list. Ramon instead has chosen to look inward, do something creative that is all about getting in touch with his feelings, and it brings on a panic attack.

The film follows as that dynamic is set in their relationship, Ramon vulnerable but actually processing, and Celine taking on this self-appointed role as responsible for holding it all together. His fragility feeds her need to rescue him, to be the one who has the power to make it better, until it inevitably wears her down with exhaustion. I saw a meme the other day, it said, “There is nothing glamorous about doing life alone, hyper independence is a trauma response”, and this film really brought that to the fore in my mind. Celine looks like she has it so much more together than Ramon, but the opposite is true. It takes strength to reach out for help, to let people love and support you, to let yourself fall and trust others to catch you.

A really well done film, in which the act of living and loving is the greatest act of hope.

Well that was a whole load of nothing.

The blurb to this film makes it look quite interesting, a largely powerless figurehead of the French government in Tahiti, part of French Polynesia, has to manage rising tensions between the indigenous population and some recently stationed naval officers as rumours swirl that nuclear tests will resume. For those of you too disgustingly young to remember, back in the 90s, France thought it would be a good thing to test its nuclear weapons in its colonial territories, and decided, yes, an island paradise with coral reefs and verdant rainforests, teeming with life, would be the best place to do it. A repeat of that would not be welcomed by almost anybody.

How you make a movie with stakes this high boring as fuck I do not know. Well, I do, first you make it almost 3 hours long! It’s a thriller, meant to be. That means tension, that means pacing. Pacifiction is soporifically slow. I struggled to stay awake and more than once felt myself losing that battle. Baggy as fuck. Just 20 miles of nothing. It felt like the story was taking place in real time. It was just interminable.

And there is absolutely no need! This story doesn’t have that many moving parts. There’s the naval officers, the indigenous citizens’ council, the folk that work in the hotel nightclub, two shady businessmen, and a guy who claims to have lost his passport. That’s not that much to keep track of. So when I tell you I have no idea what happened in this film, it’s not because it’s too complicated to follow. It is because there was nothing to follow. The setup of the film is that nuclear tests might be about to resume, and that is literally where the plot stays until the very last scene of the movie.

And there is no complexity or nuance to anything you’re shown. The main character is an obnoxious, smarmy blowhard, bristling with toxic masculinity and colonial paternalism, lurching from one obvious shakedown for gossip to another, all utterly ineffective. The admiral is in the exact same mold, and only at odds with him because of the need to maintain military secrets. Meanwhile the indigenous folk are just trying to live their lives, but make it clear in no uncertain terms there will be hell to pay if they irradiate their home. White men have a dick measuring contest at the expense of indigenous lives and land, so far so predictable.

I would love to say “and then”. But there is no ‘and then’. The main character makes an unbelievable amount of monologues that tell you nothing other than he is a gassy windbag. Like, you know how in the book of Pride and Prejudice, Austen insists of transcribing every word of Mr. Collins’s long and tedious lectures? Exactly that. And after the umpteenth time, you are just like, can’t we just skip this?

And that feeling stays with you for almost all the film. I kept asking myself, “Why this scene? What’s it for?” and the honest answer is nothing. So much time spent and nothing conveyed, not plot, not tension, not movement, not anything at all.

It was so absent of any plot or pacing that I actually begin to think at one point, “Wait, is this maybe a comedy, and I’m just not getting it? Is the useless bumbling bureaucrat stuck in perpetual fail mode meant to be funny?” But I fear I was searching for some intended satisfaction for the audience that just wasn’t there.

The one and only thing I will say for this film is its main female lead is trans and it’s never mentioned. Just isn’t commented on. She’s just allowed to exist, like any other character in the film. Which shouldn’t be noteworthy, but is, given how few times trans women get leading roles that aren’t primarily focused on being trans, or at all really.

I cannot recommend this film. It had me praying for nuclear armageddon just so the film would end.

Was lucky enough to get a sneak peak at My Emptiness and I at this year’s Catalan Film Festival. It’s directed by Adrian Silvestre who did Sediments, and you know I loved that.

My Emptiness and I was co-written by and stars Raphaelle Perez, an artist and activist who created a piece for theatre about her experiences as a trans woman. Drawing upon that, the film tells the story of a somewhat fictionalised version of Raphaelle, beginning from her first comprehension of her identity, her fears and doubts about transitioning, navigating dating and transmisogyny, to the articulation and confidence she finds processing it all through her art. This film is super vulnerable. Instead of the usual retread of the cycle of rejection, transformation, then acceptance by a cis world which is the staple designed for a cis audience, this is a much more introspective film, about the inner emotional wrenchings that come from living in a society which seemingly has no place for you. My worry also, especially with a title like My Emptiness and I, was that it might be yet another film that portrays being trans as tragic, or a problem. Instead it is far more nuanced and fully realised, showing highs and lows and middles too, gender dysphoria and gender euphoria, its far-reaching intersectional impact on Raphi’s life but also that it is what, not who she is. Ultimately it is a story in which she reclaims herself.

The film begins with Raphi bringing home a guy for a sexual encounter only to become visibly upset. The next scene is a doctor taking her through a bunch of questions about her gender that she can’t answer, doesn’t understand, and which feel invasive and humiliating. Which is how she learns she has gender dysphoria. And I just loved that, because when did you last see a trans person on film or tv go through the experience of gender dysphoria, be led to it through diagnosis, or struggle to see themselves in it upon first hearing it? Like, almost never. So many trans characters have to come in hyper-confident in their own identity, armoured with certainty about their knowledge of themselves, because they are going into a hostile world. But like, aren’t most characters’ journeys ones of self-discovery? Don’t most people feel like their identity is an ever-shifting, constant recreation across the different contexts that make up their lives? Why must trans characters always have to be imperviously competent? That’s what I liked most about My Emptiness and I, that vulnerability, which when you see it, you realise how rarely you get to see it. So much of the time trans stories focus on doing battle with the cis world, and while Raphi does have to do that, this is her story as a conversation with herself.

I also loved that opening to the film, because representation matters so much. How do you know you’re experiencing gender dysphoria, if you never see anyone experiencing gender dysphoria? What would that even look like? Raphi doesn’t understand why she’s bursting into tears in these interludes, she’s had to go to a psychologist to find out. And so many people are not going to see themselves in a trans character who has always known that their gender is the root cause of their feelings of discontent, and if that’s not their experience, when will they ever see that sense of difficult-to-articulate misalignment reflected back at them?

The film is very slice-of-life. Small everyday encounters, dates in coffee shops, people-watching in the park, bad days a work, calls on the phone to her parents, and going to her trans women’s group to chat about her worries and fears. Which – I was delighted to see the lasses from Sediments at the group in those scenes! When I saw Cristina and Yolanda I just wanted to throw my arms around them and ask, “How you been hen?” Those scenes are so great, because it’s really important to see that Raphi’s story is just that, her story, and it is not THE trans woman’s story. There are a myriad of experiences and different viewpoints and it’s great that is underlined by these scenes.

Yes, My Emptiness and I is tinged with melancholy, apart from anything else because it’s about a 20-something-year-old romantic, whose particular brand of being Not Good Enough (the sentence stamped onto every woman) makes her feel unloveable. But it is also a story about a young woman finding her footing, in a world where every step is a fight. And in her persistence is an insistence of her own validity and worth. So good.