Day Night Day Night

a cold film. about nothing, at first sigh. a girl. a walk. a decision. nothing clear, nothing explained. only a face in a circle of covered faces, in middle of Times Square. but this is its virtue because a movie about nothing, dark, cold, a white page is, in fact, just a portrait of viewer. story of a choice, it is beautiful and impressive in same measure. beautiful for delicate manner to present an obscure event. impressive for the force of silence and for the art of Luisa Williams (who seems be a young Nadia Comăneci ) to use this slices of silence to transform a lot of impressions about terrorism in a realistic confession. a film about a decision out of its roots. and about huge solitude as personal territory.

at the first sigh, a film about nothing. at the second, portrait of the most powerful fear. because it is one of the most simple films about terrorism. and, maybe, this is the most important thing. because it propose a view in a large human aquarium. because it gives only the presence, look and steps of a young woman in the middle of Times Square. no details. no story. only suppositions. and this form of minimalism works. not as tool for an art film. but as the right form to define a slice of reality. to remind the voice of news. to give to yourself the right questions.

I am disappointed to read that other viewers were bored. From the preview it was obvious to me that this would not be a popcorn-movie or summer blockbuster.

I enjoyed how minimal and deliberate the film is. If you are looking for an action movie, go rent 'True Lies'. If you are interested in a beautifully restrained, patient film that humanizes people on both sides of the conflict rather than than making a suicide bomber a one-dimensional villain, this movie is for you.

It takes skill and courage for a filmmaker to attempt to tell a story almost completely with images. Very little dialogue. No gun fights or car chases. Not that there's anything wrong with a fun, action-packed movie. This film is deliberately slow and was a welcome break from the usual pacing of mainstream films.

When Hannah Arendt coined the expression "the banality of evil," surely she must have had something like "Day Night Day Night" in mind. With chilling detachment, this brilliant and terrifying film chronicles the last 48 hours in the life of a potential suicide bomber. It is a topic rife with all sorts of potential pitfalls, both political and cinematic, yet the movie succeeds as a work of art because it never resorts to sensationalism or exploitation to get its point across.

Filmmaker Julia Loktey has deliberately eliminated any back story that might explain why a beautiful young girl like "Leah" would be willing to perform an action as inconceivable and incomprehensible as the one she has planned here. The whys and the wherefores are really of little concern to Loktey. Instead, she has chosen to concentrate on the almost strikingly banal, step-by-step process "Leah" must go through to complete the deed. Indeed, it's amazing how, through context alone, even the most mundane of actions - brushing one's teeth, taking a bath, clipping one's toenails - can suddenly become imbued with the most terrifying significance and sense of foreboding. It's almost as if "Leah" is trying to hold onto a sense of normalcy for as long as she can, savoring the minor pleasures of life that she knows she will never experience again. In fact, in the stunning final half hour of the film, as "Leah" roams around the streets of New York City trying to summon up the courage to fulfill her mission, she begins to cling more and more to the simple joys of life - a mustard-covered pretzel, a candy apple - before taking that final plunge into the abyss. What's particularly disturbing is how unfailingly sweet and polite "Leah" is to the people around her - be they the common pedestrians or storekeepers who could easily become her victims, or the masked men who calmly, almost apologetically, feed her instructions on what she is to do when the fateful moment arrives. The scene in which they dress "Leah" up in terrorist garb and methodically "direct" her for a video that will be released after her death is one of the most chilling in the entire film.

Luisa Williams, who is never off camera for a single moment in the film, delivers an astonishing tour-de-force performance that is guaranteed to leave the audience stunned into silence. With very little in the way of dialogue to work with, Williams is forced to rely almost exclusively on facial expression and body language to convey a wealth of emotion. The incongruity between the character's sweet personality and demeanor and the horrific act of violence she is about to commit throws us completely off balance and makes us call into question our own perception of the world and the way it works.

Loktey employs documentary-style realism to tell her story, using her camera to record, almost as a dispassionate observer, the events as they unfold in the course of that 48-hour period.

"Day Night Day Night" contains more nerve-wracking suspense than a boatload of standard thrillers, yet it is a suspense that is honestly earned, for Loktey never stoops to implausible timing or hokey contrivance to create her effect. This is the stuff of real life - with all its attendant unpredictability and ironies - unfolding before us. We are forever focused on this young lady, who remains a fascinating and terrifying enigma throughout the entire hour-and-a-half that we spend with her.

Stated simply, "Day Night Day Night" is one of the most riveting and important releases of 2007.

Caught this at an art theater last night, and the crowd afterward was split about 50/50 as to how they received the film.

One side admitted that the film was unique while avoiding any trace of pretentiousness and that Loktev was captivating. Still, these people felt that the film’s incredibly slow pace was too much to bear. I understand this sentiment, but I don't agree with it. Likewise, just about everyone thought the film was very creepy, and while this turned on many in the art-house crowd, it repelled nearly as many.

Personally, I like creepy movies, and I thought the creepiness was magnified wonderfully by the slow pace. It felt like a snuff film combined with soft-core child porn combined with _The Passion of Joan of Arc_. Seriously, it was that creepy. And that added creepiness greatly to the suspense—I literally jumped a little bit out of my chair at one point, and I can only remember doing that a handful of times in my history of movie-going.

Still, I don’t know whether or not the slow pace would hold up well to repeated viewings, and it's not like the pacing was perfect; shaving ten minutes overall probably would have helped. But I still think the film was effective and unique enough to deserve a high rating.