DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT: waiting to blow up

DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT is the story of 19 year old Leah, who is preparing to kill herself in a suicide bombing. The movie is shot like a documentary, staying on Leah from stat to finish, not a second passes without her being in front of the camera. We see the two days leading up to her planned suicide, but we learn very little about her past, or what has brought her to this place.

In the opening scene Leah is reciting an intense prayer, explaining she is doing all of this for "him".  All we learn about Leah (who has an nondescript American accent) is that she is 19, carries a photo of her younger brother, and she claims her parents are dead. Interestingly this last fact is questionable towards the end, when she makes a phone call to people it seems are her parents, although perhaps her birth parents are dead and these are the people who raised her? Personally I like films that leave unanswered questions, and clearly knowing so little about Leah is one of the strengths of the film, it keeps us unsettled, because we are never sure if we should view her with sympathy or horror. 

The first half of the film is Leah, passing time in her motel room, waiting for phone calls and visits from a group of masked men who come and go, preparing her and testing her for the deed ahead. Their faces are never revealed, but they too speak with American accents, and remain as mysterious as Leah. The first half is strong, even as we watch her do mundane acts (clipping her toenails, brushing her teeth, opening a curtain) it is very tense. Each of these daily activities form new meanings in the context of her situation. These are the last times she will do these things, and I felt that each activity was like an escape for her, a way to put off what was to come, and the completion of each one was a reminder that she was that much closer to death. 

The second half of the film is Leah wandering the streets of New York, headed for Times Square, wearing a yellow backpack stuffed full of over 50 pounds of explosives. She walks and walks and walks and buys a lot of food. Two gigantic pretzels with mustard, a candy apple, each giving her an activity to pass the time, but leaving her with only her anxiety. This half is weaker then the first, but still strong. The tension I felt, watching her holding her walkman detonator, had me bracing myself, wondering what we would see if she blew up. I always enjoy when a film can make me feel a degree of what the characters I am watching are feeling, and DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT did a great job of building the anxiety for the viewer, while we watch a girl experiencing immense fear and apprehension, about to commit an unimaginable act. 

This was the was the second feature directer Julia Loktev, who made a documentary in 1998 about a Russian immigrants. I heard about Loktev while I was reading about this years films and heard about her 2011 film, THE LONELIEST PLANET, which got attention at several festivals last spring, and stars hottie Gael Garcia Bernal.  I am very excited to see LONELIEST PLANET, a slow paced thriller about a couple hiking over a mountain, sounds interesting.  Seeing DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT upped my expectations

MICHAEL FASSBENDER: my new favorite actor

My current actor obsession is Mr. Fassbender. I first saw him in this years JANE EYRE as brooding, mysterious Rochester. That film was exquisite, and soon after I saw him in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS as Magneto, and my obsession began. In both films I found him captivating and completely committed to his characters. I quickly watched two of his break out indy roles, that I had missed in theaters. They were  FISH TANK and HUNGER.  Fassbender has the kind of masculine good looks that stand out after seeing him play such strong characters on film. He plays flaws,  humanity and evil with relatable and terrifying honesty. In FISHTANK Fassbender plays a man who befriends an angry teenage daughter, gains her trust and eventually betrays her in a moment of inappropriate passion. The role is most disturbing because of the wonderful performance Fassbender gives, making him real and flawed over simply perverted. It is Fassbender's ability to explore characters with such dark tendencies, and understand them, without judging them. He is also very sexy in a sort of threatening way. 

Later this year Fassbender has two films opening that I am confident will fulfill my appetite for him. First is A DANGEROUS METHOD directed by David Cronenberg and co-starring Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley. Fassbender plays Carl Jung to Mortensen's Freud and will certainly have some intense moments in a film I hear has some kinky sex scenes between he and Knightley. SHAME comes later in the year and is one of the films I have been looking forward to the most this winter. SHAME reunites Fassbender with director Steve McQueen,  whom directed 2008's HUNGER, an exceptional first film about a hunger strike in a Northern Ireland prison. It is hard to watch, and simply unforgettable. SHAME co-stars the adorable Carey Mulligan, playing the sister of Fassbender, a sex addicted business man in New York and the preview looks amazing. 

I predict that this is an actor who will soon be mentioned among the greatest actors, I would go as far as to say that soon this time of year will have him on constant oscar watch, and he will be offered the great roles out there. So, for now, I am able to be one of few whom is obsessed with this man, but I think the crowds will come soon.

Two fun facts about Michael:  He is a Natural Ginger! He also grew up in Kilarney, Ireland, where part of my family descends from!