VENICE 2021: Land of Dreams
VENICEDirecting duo Shoja Azari and Shirin Neshat's Land of Dreams is an incredibly dense self-prodigal narrative and context that cannot justify the feature’s own weight nor interest from its audience. Land of Dreams, a high concept science fiction feature made on an incredibly low shoestring budget, curates an undeniable niche spectrum that will alienate all but a single few. It is a feature that bizarrely, on an initial viewing, is recontextualised with a narrative never seen by its actual synopsis that suggests it is another film entirely.
It is hard to explain or analyse the narrative here, because the plot is almost indecipherable in cohesion and conviction. Themes of civil unrest, political corruption and social dissonance are present, but what it all means is anyone's guess. Shoja Azari and Shirin Neshat must know because they continue with trying to salvage and discuss whatever this narrative is by digging a deeper and deeper grave for the film to never to crawl out from.
Granted, this is the narrative. The film's plot is somewhat worse: fragmented, lethargic and often painful. Land of Dreams proposes a multitude of subplots and roads which never lead to anything worthy of the viewers times. Often enough, said plots are justified with moral or emotionally fuelled substance, but such is so weakly woven into the seams here that it becomes condescending and patronising to sit through.
This is the issue of where the tripe screenplay from writer-director Shoja Azari and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière ultimately comes home to roost and affect the performances. The screenplay is just blasé and condescending; the characters crafted here are all one-note and aloft with substance that could make them noticeably interesting. Sheila Vand's Simin leads the piece with arguably the most significance, but it is all expositional material to build her character and the story – each element of which is atrociously maligned and nonexistent. Therefore, it makes whatever substance is being pushed here redundant; to make matters worse, to have to witness all this for almost two hours is utterly tortuous and a crime to all the senses and time afforded to us all on planet earth.
Not even to sit and look at the style is enough to warrant sticking up this. The cinematography and overall aesthetic look incredibly cheap and akin to Netflix's television procedurals with lacking heart and soul. Granted, this is an element that could be used to contextualise the morbid sentiments of the narrative aesthetically. Nevertheless, such a reach can not be defended in how idle and lifeless the image is throughout.
Unfortunately, having one stirring finale shot can not justify almost two hours of unnerving jargon and concept, leading Land of Dreams to be a dismal and genuinely, at times, unwatchable concept science fiction that fails to justify the two elements that define it as such. It is just a shame that an actor such as Shiela Vand, with undeniable talent, is not able to showcase such at any stage with poor dialogue in a, quite frankly, terrible screenplay, but at least the feature has Isabella Rossellini to cackle relentlessly in the background for all to witness and surefire to detest.
