Well-received by critics when it screened at last year’s New York Film Festival, Julia Loktev’s film concerns a young couple, played by Hani Furstenberg and Gael Garcia Bernal, who are trekking the wild spaces of the Republic of Georgia.
We spend a long while watching this well-scrubbed pair have well-scrubbed sex, in between following their rough-hewn guide through the gorgeous wilderness. We know an Event is coming, and it does — an act of betrayal that shatters the idyll.
And then they keep right on backpacking, only with longer, nastier silences and a good deal many more glares.
Loktev has remarkable visual chops, demonstrated via scenes like a long-distance look at the couple and their guide walking along a riverbank after the Event, or a graceful shot that zooms in on Furstenberg’s hair coiled at her neck. And the ravishing score, by Richard Skelton, is the best of the year, lending resonance to some sections that might not have it otherwise.
Unfortunately, Loktev’s dry approach to establishing the couple’s relationship means its abrupt collapse causes little emotional impact. That makes the wispy plot even more frustrating; this movie explodes if one character turns to the other on one of those arduous hikes and says, “What the heck was that about back there?” Gorgeous surroundings don’t make up for sulky, feuding travel companions.