NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2024 (April 3-April 14)

[Chris Knipp]

LAURA FERRÉS: THE PERMANENT PICTURE/LA IMATGE PERMANENT (2023)


A STILL FROM LA IMATGE PERMANENT

"Idiosyncratic and enigmatically couched musings on photographic reproduction and, by extension, cinema"

The opening is from Carmen Grey's San Sebastien reivew of this film for The Film Verdict. She describes it as "An elegant, playful exploration of the consolatory but deceptive nature of image-making across generations, from Catalan director-to-watch Laura Ferres."

This theme is somewhat detached from the central plot line, however, and that promppted a Letterboxd writer to comment that the story "has potential – a 50-year-old woman unwittingly befriends the mother who had her as a pre-teen and who abandoned her as a baby" but to complain that "it's presented in a gratingly self-conscious blend" of "portentous drama" and "over-conceptualised drollness."

This can be phrased differently. But the problem is that the filmmakers have too little commitment to their story of the accidental discovery of the mother who abandoned the protagonist. As the Letterboxd writer says, this is good material - too good to make subsidiary to comments about photographic imagery. The central plot line also matters.

Actually, this film wanders off in multiple directions and can be difficult to follow - I had trouble making sense of it. See, however, the sympathetic and detailed description of the film in High on Films by Debanjan Dhar, who was able to follow many of its twists and turns.

The Permanent image/La imatge permanent,, 94 mins., debuted at Locarno Aug. 2023, also showing at Cambridge, Thessaloniki , and Göteborg. Screened for this review as part of the Apr. 3-15, 2024 MoMA/FLC New Directors/New Films series. Showtimes:
Tuesday, April 9
6:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater
Wednesday, April 10
8:45pm, MoMA T2