There's an austerity and femininity to Antouanetta Angelidi's films that I find both intellectually stimulating and alienating. Her works tend to harbor an intimacy in the way scenes are constructed, yet with its total disregard for narrative convention or any traditional formatting, can often create a vast chasm between its viewing audience and what's showcased. Comprehension exists, not from character or any form of "plotting" onscreen but rather from text and textures, the whole "mood piece" idea but for minimalist, avant-garde cinema. Like Thief or Reality and Topos before it, it uses these stagey, threadbare warehouse sets, where subject matter and objects are seemingly sculpted out of darkness, tactile but existing in a state of unreality. But unlike the previous entries, she also incorporates physical locations here, making this one stand out; each tableau still exists in this cerebral void-like nothingness, but the intermixture of set and location lends it a different dimension. Artifice and theatricality that would feel right at home with many of Portuguese cinema's greats.
Also, like Marguerite Duras, Antouanetta Angelidi is a female director I find myself drawn to for more or less the same reason; her particular style of avant-garde and sensibilities as an artist, valuing liminal space and temporal association, where the incongruencies of narration and visual takes precedence over superficial comprehension. It's a style that awards a complete surrender to its form; you have to let it lull you in, to let it wash over you. It's an outpouring of creativity you can't actively try to analyze and comprehend in real time.
I often refer to her brilliant 2001 film Thief or Reality as "The night to The Color of Pomegranates's day." and in many ways, The Hours: A Square Film more or less fits the same mold. Like a series of dark, cryptic paintings constructed from the mind's eye. Part of a body of work whose meager size has no bearing on its potency as challenging artistic achievements. Big "stern theater director that only wears black turtleneck sweaters, stinks of cigarettes, and is incapable of cracking a smile" energy, and I'm here for it.
