It's true. Strange Colours, after watching it, gosh, maybe ten or so times, is now my second most favourite film of this century. Why? Because it's slowness is also it's strength. In a world of over saturated, fast cut and paced narratives, the mediative qualities which are so profound in this film traverse into a singularity which propels the film's story into an immersive experience brought about by a combination of the vacantness of the character's interaction with each other, moving performances, outstanding cinematography and of course, that music. By the halfway point, I regularly drift off where I don't need a story or a reason to keep watching because higher measures are in order, that is to say, the immersiveness of the bleak yet seductive landscape overcome my cinema senses until, by the end of the film, I don't care what was happening in the film because the film itself carried me away to a place of fulfilment, afforded by the ability that I just snuck out of reality of an hour and a half and on return, it had a meaningful impact on my sense of the world around me. Very few film makers can do this to me except, say, for Tarr and Tarkovsky. But now there are three directors in my quadrant and Lodkina is one of them. If this is what female directors produce in the fight for gender equality in the industry, I never want to see a male director again. They just can't keep up. Lodkina wipes the floor, and so she should.
