THE LONELIEST PLANET
Alex and Nica are young, in love and engaged to be married. The summer before their wedding, they are backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. The couple hire a local guide to lead them on a camping trek, and the three set off into a stunning wilderness, a landscape that is both overwhelmingly open and frighteningly closed. Walking for hours, they trade anecdotes, play games to pass the time of moving through space. And then, a momentary misstep, a gesture that takes only two or three seconds, a gesture that's over almost as soon as it begins. But once it is done, it can't be undone. Once it is done, it threatens to undo everything the couple believed about each other and about themselves.
"MARVELOUS! Stunningly shot... somehow manages to be both audacious and subtle: Awkward silences become deafening and the spacious wilderness unsettles with a devastating claustrophobia."
-Aaron Hillis, VILLAGE VOICE
"Loktev's staging of the crucial moment is expert; her look at the aftermath is poignant and nuanced."
-Richard Brody, NEW YORKER
The follow up to DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT, a chilling and tense examination of terrorism, faith, and duty, Julia Loktev brings the same intensity and clear-eyed vision to THE LONELIEST PLANET. This latest film confirms the hypothesis presented by DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT; that Loktev is a significant filmmaker with a distinct voice. Starring one of this generations greatest actors Gael Garcia Bernal (BABEL, THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, BAD EDUCATION) and Hani Furstenberg - in a tour-de-force performance - THE LONELIEST PLANET is compelling cinema.
Directed by Julia Loktev. Unrated.
USA, 2012, 35mm Film, 113minutes, Color, English.