To be on the cusp of identity is to be bereft of identity. To come of age is to be neither young nor old. To be Dutch or Bosnian, to be native or immigrant, to be citizen or nomad: adolescent uncertainty is twisted and stressed through these complex cultural affiliations. Multinational Alma (Sara Luna Zorić, excellent) is at the edge of womanhood, gazing into a fractured world that reflects — what else? — a fractured self. Displacement gives rise to the unhomely, the uncanny.
READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019
Ena Sendijarević’s playful, delightful “Take Me Somewhere Nice” frames and articulates this spatial and psychological confusion, offering emotional distance against sharp material proximity. Up close we embrace the body: tongues, canines, buttocks, legs, dyed hair, one fallen eyelash that adorns a cheek. This is more physical tribute than desire to comprehend the numbed state of teenage sensibility. Feeling is rarely meant through histrionics; here, facial expressions are treated as odd currency, to be handled distrustfully.
READ MORE: The Most Anticipated Films By Female Filmmakers In 2019
Alma returns to Bosnia searching for her ailing father, long AWOL. This man she doesn’t know is reduced to a hospital bed. She stays with her cousin Emir (Ernad Prnjavorac), murky and reluctant, and his ‘intern’ Denis (Lazar Dragojević), horny and unreliable. The two are local schemers, unhelpful and dense, incapable of tracking down Alma’s paternal target. Her impression of the new city is clipped, inhibited. Emerging lust and boredom manifest themselves within a stationary existence. These delays produce an extended state of anticipation, a series of obstacles that work to prevent linear movement.
READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2019 We’ve Already Seen
Alma, Emir, and Denis are cast below the narrow heights, all fixed in the perils of geography, of origin, of myth. Conversation is pause-laden, disjointed. Culture and society are interrogated without eloquence. The world is made big and unfathomable. Moments of scripted truism puncture the malfunction of language. Emir explicitly notes the love- and hate-filled premises of patriotism and nationalism, before falling into a baffling analogy about broken glass. A woman rubs in sun cream by the pool, recalling the false distinction between artist and prostitute. Learning Alma lives in the Netherlands with her mother, the woman says, disbelievingly, “You two are all alone there?” These declarations are woven into a larger political subtext, one that undercuts the dreams of migration with the realities of unbelonging. Bosnia is caught between everywhere, infected by all, helped by no one.
As a self-consciously formal exercise, one unashamedly influenced by Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise,” ‘Somewhere Nice’ is satisfyingly attentive to its compositions. Emo Weemhof’s ingenious cinematography persistently marries vertiginous perspectives to a cramped 4:3 aspect ratio. Forget for a moment how the aesthetic of cool estrangement interrogates the human condition; instead, embrace the artistry of empty space. This is less a waste of canvas, more a signal of downward oppression, a deceptive vista promising escape. The sky is at once gloomy and iridescent. Vast sterile rooms stretch upward, complementing an exhibition of primary colors: the red dress, the blue neon, the yellow house. Halfway through, a swapped suitcase bathes Alma in white, this both material and powdered. Purity takes on many forms; the shades weaken. Ruptures of violence deliver crimson onto striped shirts.
Inverted deus ex machina loosely derail the plot: buses drive off; cars break down; Samaritans get blindsided; road kill is made so. It’s really about the disquieting relationships en route. The boys fall for Alma, now the object of desire. Still, tilted shots evoke frustrated thirst and absurd caprice. When people fuck, it’s upside down. Familial concern amounts to envy, “Is he harassing you?” — “No, he’s just nice.” Quintuple-paneled mirrors show schisms between and within split beings. Sonic Youth’s Kool Thing soundtracks momentarily united rebellion. The same ruptures of violence tease deliverance.
Some characterizations seem cheap and sneering: the sad, seedy politician, the ludicrous hotel magician, over-caked women smearing on makeup in the club toilet. But this is overall an elegant, resistant film that keeps us at one remove, in a state of perplexed disquiet. A wondrous scene has Alma infiltrate an orange over a stash of water bottles, the obscenity later refracted in the overstocked bathroom. It’s arbitrary and joyous. Why would you?
Emir offers one paradigm for human motivation, for universal yearning — “A good reason and a real reason.” When so near as to touch, neither is relevant. [A-]
Check out all our coverage from the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam here.