Julia Loktev Movies
A shocking incident throws a seemingly healthy relationship into crisis in this drama from director Julia Loktev. Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) are a twentysomething couple who have been together for several years and enjoy traveling, taking a certain pride in their willingness to rough it rather than follow the easy path. The pair will soon be married, and to celebrate they've traveled to Eurasia to climb the Caucasus Mountains. After hiring a local guide named Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), the couple hike through the wilderness en route to the mountains. They spend their time swapping stories and soaking in the rugged beauty of their surroundings in respectful silence, with Dato offering his own curt interjections. However, one day the hikers cross paths with a group of hunters, leading to an incident in which Alex's reaction seems either prudent or cowardly depending on one's perspective. The trio eventually pick themselves up and move on, but nothing seems the same for Alex and Nica after that. The Loneliest Planet received its North American premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Writer-director Julia Loktev's (Moment of Impact) harrowing, claustrophobic thriller Day Night Day Night plunges the audience into the world of a suicide bomber just prior to her final, fatal act. As the film opens, a young woman (played by Luisa Williams) prays to an unknown, unspecified deity, then tucks away into a fleabag New Jersey motel room, when several hooded men arrive, arm her with explosives, and give her instructions to carry out. She then takes off alone, headed straight for Times Square, and making her way through clamoring throngs of real people -- any of whom could instantly become her casualties. Loktev strips away much of the external exposition, never revealing the central character's name, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or political background. The director thus forces the audience to focus, exclusively and unrelentingly, on the nature of the character's actions, and underscores the idea that terrorist motivations are, on some level, completely inconceivable to an outsider. Ironically, instead of turning the central character into a cipher and thus distancing her from the viewer, the film's stripped exposition terrifyingly draws the audience closer to the character. Josh Phillip Weinstein and Gareth Saxe co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Luisa Williams, Josh Phillip Weinstein, (more)
- 1998
- NR
April 1, 1989, 50-year-old Russian-born Leonid Loktev, a Colorado computer-program analyst, was crossing the road between garage sales when he was struck by a car, receiving a traumatic brain injury that left him unable to execute simple tasks. Eight years later, Leonid's daughter, filmmaker Julia Loktev, went home to Colorado to document and discover the lives of her parents since the accident, recording the daily household routines of Larisa Loktev -- a wife, mother, and former program analyst who gave up her career to care for her husband after removing him from a nursing home. As the day begins, Larisa wakes Leonid, gets him out of bed to the accompaniment of up-tempo sounds from the stereo, and dresses him. Larisa makes cheerful conversation, but Leonid reacts mostly with a blank stare. Old photos reveal his vitality prior to the accident (seen in an impressionistic dramatized re-enactment). This is an unusual family portrait, captured without the intrusion of outside elements, since the filmmaker operated both camera and sound, even during late-night gabfests with her mother. Shot in Hi-8 video with a transfer to black-and-white film, the 115-minute documentary brought Julia Loktev a "Best Director" award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and was a selection of the 1998 New Directors/New Films series (MOMA/Film Society of Lincoln Center). ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Larisa Loktev, Leonid Loktev, (more)
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