Dry Leaf

There is no medium which generative artificial intelligence has not attempted to improve; what initially seemed like a helpful aide in menial tasks has since transformed into a revolution on all digital and analogue frontiers. No medium has been more vexed by the introduction of this new technology than film, an artistic world which struggles to find a comfortable balance between inspiration and plagiarism. But with the newest available technologies, one thing can unanimously be agreed upon: there is no visual environment that is beyond the realm of human imagination. It is thus all the more shocking that Alexandre Koberidze’s latest film, Dry Leaf, attempts the opposite. In an age where the latest technology is bursting to inform its prospective owners of its specifications—the sharpness of its cameras’ quality and the dimensions of its screens—Koberidze compromises on resolution strictly for formal limitation. 

Shot on a Sony Ericsson, Dry Leaf presents modern-day Georgia as a country slowly affected by the mobilising urbane. The visual palette of the film is an almost immediate sensory shock, a montage filmed on the lowest resolution. It feels as though the film is placed at a distance, both in space and time. In fact, the film is very much a poesie constructed in reverence to Georgia’s past, especially in its love for football. Football is the audience’s symbol of antiquity, replaced in our world as tall buildings or large plains. Our “protagonist” is Irakli (David Koberidze), a teacher at a sports centre—though principal deuteragonist may ultimately be the more descriptive role. Upon his daughter Lisa’s letter announcing her sudden disappearance from quotidian life, he embarks on a mission to find her and bring her home. He is led by Lisa’s friend, Levan, who, “like most people, is invisible”, as they traverse the caucasus together in search for her. While Koberidze idolises the past, he does not fall into the trappings of merely embracing it without qualms. In its large plains that populate the film, he frequently positions it as a land of mythical opportunity, a place where the sky is quite literally the only limit. Thus, the film is very much in conversation with his last, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, as oppositional forces in the forces of suburban and metropolitan. And much like how his previous work accesses the medium as a form for experience, his latest is an experience in its new access to the form. 

Koberidze is a man who speaks the language of film mainly through quotation. Stretches of the film push your understanding of the medium to its limit, whether it is in how lowering resolution brings out the stark contrast of its blank silhouettes against the vibrant terrains or how wordless montages of autumnal foliage gradually degrade into picaresque landscapes. In many ways, it evokes the style of Dorota Kobiela in her animated painture works (Loving Vincent, The Peasants), though the effect is created purely through a lens rather than the manual labour of canvassing. It is remarkable how Koberidze’s impressionistic fragments are not limitations resulting from his choice of equipment but a sheer exaltation of the medium’s ultimate oblique potential. The film recalls moments wherein the camera abuses the zoom function to its experimentational extremity for the sense of complete lack of conformity. This transience ultimately presents itself as a comfort for the viewer, fulfilling us in its tenderness even as Irakli’s despondence grows over his inability to locate his daughter. Like his predecessors in this style of transient filmmaking (Abbas Kiarostami, Tsai Ming-Liang, Béla Tarr), he limits the scope of this film’s narrative growth. As a result, there is nothing but a gingerly attentiveness to the sonic landscape and visual abstraction. 

And here comes the point of contention; that is, whether a film made in part to test the patience of its audience is ultimately worth watching. It is undeniable that we live in a world where the attention economy is rapidly shrinking. Almost every platform has given its users the opportunity to digest its content at twice the speed, and algorithms trained on our preferences have prioritised short-form content over longer works in differing mediums. The longstanding argument against the implementation of this is clear; in accelerating our rate of digestion, we have lost track of the need for nuance or clarity. Koberidze’s film, like those of Weerasethakul or Benning before him, moves diametrically in this trend in defiance of the attention movement. Compromising between holding the viewer hostage for its attention and being forgettable, this form of the cinematic genre conjures up a dual reality between the perception of reality in our minds and that of the silver screen. In its Brakhagian fleets of elation, even the slightest of movements allow us to feel. Moving at life’s pace, rather than wielding it in some messianic fashion, develops the emotional strength for us to move through. When the credits roll, you can’t help but feel exhausted, as though watching the film has taken a toll on you. Perhaps it has, establishing that simply experiencing life as intended might be the most difficult task of it all. 

9/10