Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: LUMINA [International Film Festival Rotterdam 2021 - Summer -Virtual]
The interesting elements of longing or nostalgia is an intriguing construct because it has to do with how things are presented or remembered. "Lumina" [Bright Future/World Premiere] is an effective perception while still being essentially an experimental film. It is science fiction oriented without any technology save for a cell phone. The dread is not necessarily present but is definitely present. The film is seen through the eyes of a fairly unnamed woman. The mythological implications are interesting yet no actual sense of location in the world is shown. The people in a external storyline (which may be internal) speak Italian.
Carlotta Velda Mei plays this girl who is essentially a woman but there is a no texture of her maturity since she hardly says anything for us to know her backstory. She can illuminate and start things as a power source hence the title. The allusion this reviewer saw was that of Miranda in "The Tempest". She is innocent and does not know how to process what she is seeing or what happened to her world if she even remembers it. She recognizes things yet doesn't. The film does take patience but it is beautiful to look at. Like "Blue Velvet", the director uses a song that says so much while referencing so many things.. The song is Velvet's Bobby Vinton's "Mr. Lonely". It creates an ultimate vibe for the rest of the film from the one sequence it is introduced in.
Meanwhile, as the story progresses, the life a couple plays on a cell phone through their different videos and picture. It is fleeting yet undeniably a view of life (not unlike Terrence Malick's "Tree Of Life" in certain ways). There is that sense of loss especially in our unnamed woman which is palpable especially when she wanders out onto a marsh in one long shot. The eventual gaps and grasps of reality have an odd parallel to "Somewhere in Time". Especially in one shot against a black background. The woman's breakdown, by contrast, on the marsh is beautiful and yet horrible in the fact that she is so alone. There is an eventual connection she makes but even that is played in an almost Lynchian way yet again is beautifully done.
Again the duality, not of characters but of existence, is a very specific metaphor. It is not a fantasy but rather a purgatory though the explanation, especially within a cave structure nd its portals, is never made clear. Even the final shot is undeniably maddening and yet welcome because the film wants the viewer to take their own representations away. Even the use of Wagner's Prelude creates a n allusion to the aspect of creation, the simily of the Garden Of Eden references in a weird techno retro way is quite powerful. One shot with light pouring through a derelict car as the unnamed lady eats something (dare it be an apple) is iconic in a certain way. "Lumina" is one of those movies that might not have commercial prospects but simply stays with you and shows the absolute greatness of film festivals to give it that platform. It doesn't have to make full amounts of sense but it is affecting. A-
By Tim Wassberg
