It felt like watching paint dry as I screened director Gianfranco Rosi‘s “Notturno” during this past September’s digital edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. Featuring multiple points of view, Rosi’s film deals with the Middle East and the people that live there during the war. Rosi shot the doc over the course of three years on the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and, Lebanon and is hellbent on concentrating on the mundane aspect of their everyday lives. I almost felt like turning the entire thing off by the 30-minute mark. I sadly didn’t. We are shown how these impoverished people have to deal with the wars around them, but, going for a broader vision here, Rosi shoots it as though there really isn’t much of a war going on in the first place. It’s a crushing disappointment given that Rosi delivered Oscar-nominated doc and Golden Bear-winning film “Fire at Sea” back in 2016, an immaculate portrayal on European migrants ashore. This latest one, which is the official Oscar selection from Italy this year, lacks a firm point of view, feeling both detached and fragmented.
“Notturno” will debut on January 22 in Virtual Cinemas before hitting VOD and Hulu on January 29.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.