How Current Cinema Represents Modern Domestic Life
To the credit of the Locarno Festival, the films in the 2017 selection don’t waste time trying to tell universal stories that transcend their time and place. Falling in love varies depending on the social conditions behind it, as Xu Bing’s found-footage film “Dragonfly Eye s” aptly proves, while weaving a story about obsession and surveillance in contemporary China. Similarly, working in a mine in Serbia has a wholly different routine than mining for gold in Suriname, as Ben Russell’s latest documentary “Good Luck” takes its time to show. Even something as widespread as the notion of the work/life balance varies considerably in films from Locarno coming from different parts of the world and set in different milieus, and enough of these films either circumvent or contradict traditional depictions of the home.
It’s telling that new films in which the home is a sooth place are either set in different eras (Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck”) or built upon obviously artificial narrative ...