Day Night Day Night
Directed by Julia Loktev
Minimalist to the point of being avant garde, Day Night Day Night sports an anti-narrative response to post-9/11 anxieties. Hardly the first cinematic expression in that regard, it’s certainly the least pretentious of the bunch. Directed by Julia Loktev as a series of anticlimactic exchanges, the story is terse in its drama and slight in its aspirations. Following an anonymous young girl of vague nationality (Luisa Williams) during preparations for a suicide bombing mission in Times Square, the movie makes an earnest attempt to peer behind headlines at the psychological conceits of martyrdom. Loktev doesn’t explain her protagonist’s motives or ideological convictions, but she’s hardly the first filmmaker to provide character sans content. The authentic boldness of her approach comes from a startling reliance on deadened pace—minutes unfold as the girl clips her nails the day before her mission—and a real-time structure. Call it “24” with the tension reconfigured through a vessel of cold authenticity.
The movie unfolds in two distinct sequences (Loktev calls them PREPARATION and ACTION). The first half shows the would-be bomber quietly biding her time in a hotel room as masked accomplices come and go, offering their whispered guidance to ensure the timely delivery of their feminine missile. Once the girl hits the city streets, the camera trailing her through unscripted environments, Day Night Day Night culls from familiar documentary traditions. Despite a few ephemeral nail-biting moments, the scenes where the girl wanders through Midtown with an explosive backpack are persistently anti-climactic, refusing a sense of release. That’s the post-9/11 sentiment in its primal form—compelling in its frustration, but decidedly lacking complexity.
Loktev slovenly allows bystanders to peer into the camera from the background, breaking the fourth wall and diminishing the illusion that something verifiably dangerous is taking place. But the effect is chilling even when it feels superficially basic: If the backpack did contain explosives, unsuspecting extras would be none the wiser. If you take that fearsome notion with a grain of salt, you’re likely feeling the sting of a five-and-a-half-year-old open wound.
Although structural comparisons to United 93 are apt, Day Night Day Night has more in common with a recent slew of movies that deal directly with the suicide bomber mentality. Ideologically-driven explorations of the phenomenon, like the pro-Palestinian Paradise Now or the Tunisian Making Of, seek to explore the logic behind self-destruction as a means of combating oppression. Loktev’s contribution to the discussion is far more abstract and inconclusive. Intently recreating the ordinary world, Loktev confirms the paranoia that danger lurks in the details of modern life.
