Connect with us

Film

Berlinale 2021: Natural Light is Slow Cinema Without the Soul

Anti-war in all the wrong ways

Natural Light 2021 film review
Courtesy of Berlin Film Festival

It isn’t an international European film festival without some obligatory World War Two miserablism. This year’s offering, courtesy of Hungary, is a sluggish tramp through the dark, muddy, cloudy, grey, and sodden landscapes of the occupied Soviet Union. While boasting striking compositions that give the title, Natural Light, it’s fair due, this is one anti-War movie that inadvertently makes its message by showing us just how boring it can be, as opposed to displaying its many horrors. 

István Semetka (Ferenc Szabó) is an officer in a platoon of Axis Hungarian troops — of which there were 100,000 in the war — moving from village to village in order to find partisan forces. They move very slowly, Natural Light using long takes to show the troops inching through the forest, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to uncovering their enemies. They finally spend an extended time in one village, harassing the unknowing residents in order to complete their mission. Then after a deadly ambush, Semetka finds himself commander of the division; finally facing up to the responsibility that such a position entails. 

Natural Light
Courtesy of Berlin Film Festival

Semetka is witness to many horrific things — such as the uncaring bullying of the Hungarian soldiers — but he never seems to pass any judgement on their behaviour, his face a blank slate to project the banality of evil upon. As an essentially passive character, even when being forced to command his troops, he might be personifying how awful deeds can be masked by silence, but he sadly becomes an awfully uninteresting person in the process. 

The film uses a hazy colour scheme, lingering on still ponds, rivers, animals, trees, and more; showing off the difficult landscape that these soldiers trudge through. Very little beauty seeps through as if the war has cast an ugly pallor over the entire landscape. The lighting and cinematography are painterly-like and striking, but it also ensconces the film within its own aesthetic. Nothing feels alive; very little compels. 

Purposefully slow and unmoving, it shows the strange intrusion of these fascist troops in a land that’s not their own, but without giving us much detail as the backstory of these soldiers and why they act as they do — relying on the images to do the heavy lifting by itself. While war may reduce the humanity of both victim and perpetrator, this theme can be taken a bit too literally, especially when every character in your film seems devoid of vitality. By the time we get to the Andrei Tarkovsky  (with the obligatory arthouse house on fire) and Béla Tarr homages, it struck me that Natural Light is a masterful copy of the aesthetics of slow cinema. But it felt to me that while it was playing all the right notes, the feeling of the music was missing. 

Natural Light plays in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival, running from 1st to 5th March

Written By

As far back as he can remember, Redmond Bacon always wanted to be a film critic. To him, being a film critic was better than being President of the United States

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Facebook

Trending

2001: A Space Odyssey 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: Clarke and Kubrick’s Odyssey of Discovery

Culture

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 movie review Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 movie review

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Caps Off the Trilogy With a Heartfelt Bang (Mostly)

Film

Deep Impact was a serious look at the end of the world Deep Impact was a serious look at the end of the world

25 Years Later: Deep Impact was a Serious Look at the End of the World 

Film

The Best Movies of 1973 The Best Movies of 1973

The Golden Year of Movies: 1973

Culture

The Zone of Interest The Zone of Interest

Cannes 2023: Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest is a Manicured Vision of Hell

Culture

Jeanne Du Barry review Jeanne Du Barry review

Cannes 2023: Maïwenn’s Great Hair Goes to Great Lengths in Jeanne Du Barry

Culture

Black Flies Gripping Black Flies Gripping

Cannes 2023: Black Flies— Gripping Descent into the Underbelly of New York’s Urban Misery 

Culture

Asteroid City: A Gimmicky Vanity Project Asteroid City: A Gimmicky Vanity Project

Cannes 2023: Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is a Gimmicky Vanity Project

Culture

La Passion de Dodin Bouffant: La Passion de Dodin Bouffant:

La Passion de Dodin Bouffant: Surfeit Cooking Drama Most Inane Film at Cannes

Culture

BlackBerry movie review BlackBerry movie review

BlackBerry Is a Wonderfully Canadian Account of a Dying Tech Dream

Film

Godzilla 1998 Godzilla 1998

Godzilla at 25: When Hollywood Made a Manhattan Monster Movie, with Disastrous Results

Film

The Mother Jennifer Lopez and Lucy Paez The Mother Jennifer Lopez and Lucy Paez

Jennifer Lopez’s The Mother is Eerily Similar to Enough, But That’s Not a Bad Thing

Film

10 Best SummerSlam Matches 10 Best SummerSlam Matches

10 Best SummerSlam Matches

Culture

Discovery channel Discovery channel

The Head-Scratching Moves Discovery Has Been Making

Culture

Sean Connery Sean Connery

60 Years Later, Dr. No Remains the Paragon of Bond

Film

The Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Reloaded

20 Years Later: The Matrix Reloaded was Underwhelming, but Still Underrated

Film

Connect