IFFR 2021 - The North Wind
IFFRCelebrating and chastising the overindulgence that comes on New Year's Eve, The North Wind puts routine and tradition to the test with a family that believe they possess a hidden lunar clock. Renata Litvinova attempts to make it as clear as possible, but such a story is not tailor made for clarity or realism. With light fantasy elements making themselves present at any opportunity, they clash wildly with the lavish direction and intemperance for busy sets.
These fantasy elements Litvinova wishes to incorporate usually cannot breach past odd hairstyles and narration layered over the top of one-note peculiarities that adorn the dinner table. A barrage of characters is introduced to the audience, nobody stands out as particularly brilliant or inspired. The usual humdrum in-fighting of any family makes its appearance clear and lingers often, but without much effect. Icy tones and a mismatch of cinematography pave the way to relatively half-baked topics and performances. No amount of talent behind the camera would be able to salvage the denser, vague moments of the narrative.
At least an attempt is made, Litvinova has a few moments that stand out as creatively charged and engaging, but these are isolated moments. Events such as this are few and far between. Happenstance occurrences of a background detail popping out of focus or the lingering brutality of a brief, diegetic sound. Moments of a creatively rewarding process appear from time to time, it makes it all the more frustrating when the gaps in-between of such positives grow larger. Worse still is the simplicity of the characters and their desires. Characters that wear their sole desires on their sleeves are no fun at all, there is no mystery to be had.
The North Wind does not possess within it the effective narrative Litvinova bases her film upon, and in turn creates a piece that uses its cluttered set designs and overbearing costume dramatics as a crutch for a loose and uneventful narrative. Dramas can only be as engaging and interesting as the leading characters, and here they’re as bored and creaky as the derelict, busy house they operate from.