05 - Twenty - A film that asks us to remember the year we'd rather forget.
A highlight from the Atlanta Film Festival, 2023
I was lucky enough to see some very interesting films during my time at the Atlanta Film Festival. (It went well!) I wanted to take some time to write about one or two that I found especially interesting and that I think really deserve to find a wider audience.
One of the great things that cinema can do is to serve as a landmark of a time, a place, and a people. It is a role true of both narrative and documentary films. It matters not how good AI generation ever gets; it can never wrest from cinema this role – capturing life as it is — as it was — in moment of time.
This is what Lev Omelchenko accomplished in his documentary film Twenty. That title refers to the year that we’d all rather forget. Captured in October 2020, in a shuttered speakeasy, the film’s conception couldn’t be more simple: talk to people, ask them how they’re doing. Give them space to reflect about the year when everything changed. It was a real act of artistic foresight that Lev realized that such a moment was unfolding before his eyes and that it would soon pass away.
I have to be honest, just reading the description of this in the program did not necessarily make me want to see the film. I went because I knew some of the folks involved in the production and I have a lot of belief in them. Journeying back to 2020 is not something that a lot of us want to do, yet as soon as the film began, the immediacy of what was taking place, the honesty, the lack of imposition of director onto the material, the openness, made such a journey not only possible, but quite enjoyable. I bring this up because I suspect this reticence could easily be a common feeling not unique to me as an audience. All I can say is that, having seen the film, it’s worth it. The stark black and white cinematography by Samuel Laubscher (my friend, yes I am biased, but others will corroborate the excellent visuals) and the out-of-time space in which the interviews take place go a long way toward setting the tone, and letting you know you’re in good hands.
Lev shared with us the difficult road of getting his film to festivals. He has trimmed the film down in length several times to its present 67-minute runtime. He’s been working on it since 2020, after all. It’s a long time to have a project on the shelves waiting to find an audience. It’s a feeling I can relate to, but I suspect the most difficulty he faced in getting this film seen was not due to its length but something wholly out of his control. Not enough time had passed. The wounds were still open. Now as the world is changing and forgetting, it is possible to see in Twenty, the unique flavors of a moment in time. One notices immediately how our language has subtly changed even in three years; the little euphemisms we used for talking about the virus, the air of unease that loomed over everything. This is what Lev captured and remembered for us in making this film.
Much of this is due to the casting and selection of the interview guests, a disparate selection of artists of many different talents and disciplines; friends, and friends of friends whom Lev knew and suspected would have good stories to tell and honest reflections to share. We should not understand this selection as if it were a randomized group of people to reflect every viewpoint across the spectrum of 2020 opinions. I think some could see this as a weakness of the film, but I suspect in the long run it is not. This selection of interview guests gives the film its particular flavor. That Lev is a sympathetic listener, who will not set each guest at odds with one another is the reason it is possible for his subjects to be open with him. He is a friend, and they are amongst friends, not pollsters. This film certainly has a viewpoint. I was surprised how funny it could be at times. Perceptive comments about vaccines, among other things, have aged surprising well, and had the entire theater erupting in laughter. But the overall tone cannot escape the dread and the fear of the future that so utterly characterized that year.
Some of the later moments in the film are sure to polarize as the subjects share their political views. But agree or disagree, the camera sees all, and it is not for the camera to judge, only to record. Politics, one can argue about. You cannot argue about the majesty of the human face, and it is in these moments of brutal honesty where we join in silent reflection not on the political things, but on the state of life, in the here and now, in the sublimely simple capture of musical performances that punctuate the memories laid bare, where it may be possible for this film to build bridges.
Is there hope in this film? It is not in the words that the people share. For many of their stories are quite sad, heartbreaking even, their hopes for the future utterly in doubt. But somehow there is hope. I cannot agree with the pessimism that bubbles to the surface at times in the film’s length. Yes, I feel it too, only I don’t believe in what I feel. If life is so hopeless, why should we bother to record a moment like this? Why record anything? Why, in capturing these faces, so full of sadness and fear, do they become something greater? There is a paradox in this hopelessness. For in their candor and in their humanity, they become beautiful. That searching souls like these are worth recording hints at something far greater: we ought to go on living.