Up the River With Acid
All Feature Films A-Z
•
1h 3m
DIR. HARALD HUTTER - 63MIN -2023 - FRANCE
Standing in front of the open window, a soft breeze playing through the curtains, an elderly man strangely sways to and fro. It is, for the most part, a puzzling behaviour, but one that still suggests some basic pleasure of the senses: feeling the stroke of the wind, joining in its dance. Another thing we know: the two senses by which the viewer experiences the scene are absent from this curious dance. The filmmaker’s father, Horst, has almost lost his senses of sight and hearing as a result of a decline that is also chipping away at his memory. Once a loquacious professor, he has withdrawn into the semi-seclusion of his diminished mind. He has become an “enigma”, a “winter lake”, as his wife puts it.
The film is indeed as much a portrait of her as it is of him. In this quiet house where she must come to terms with this enigma, she writes down her impressions. Both protagonists are viewed through the eyes of their son, who films them with equal tenderness and the help of fifteen rolls 16 mm film. The camera, trying to blend into the environment as it shrinks and fades away, captures the movements kept alive by habit and observes those brought on by decline. In doing so, the son follows the mother’s lesson, when she says: “There is no point in bringing you back to where our journey once began.” A statement soon challenged by a beautiful scene which reveals that the memory of how the two first met has not vanished from Horst’s mind. It’s no surprise that the film’s title takes its cue from it. - Jérôme Momcilovic, Cinéma du Réel
Up Next in All Feature Films A-Z
-
Vacancy
Dir. Alexandra Kandy Longuet - 2018 - Belgium/USA - Language: English - Subtitles available: French
Last refuge for the forgotten of the American dream, in the USA the motel is home to a whole population of left behind, drifting humans who, from crisis to crisis - economic and personal - have be...
-
Vaychiletik
Dir. Juan Javier Pérez - 83min - 2021 - Mexico
Through dreams, the gods revealed to José his vocation to be a musician as well as the responsibility of playing in the sacred festivities of Zinacantán, a Tzotzil Mayan territory in the Highlands of Chiapas. These ceremonies play a central role in ...
-
Village of Women
Dir. Tamara Stepanyan - 83min - 2019 - Armenia, France
Armenia, a village called Lichk where only women, children and the elderly reside. Men leave for 9 months of the year to work in Russia. In Summer, women cut the grass and store hay for winter. The sun arouses a certain laziness, a sensual r...