Tales of Grief, Loss and Memory

In the award-oriented mentality we often succumb to while attending a festival, films that leave empty-handed (despite the ever-growing number of awards bestowed) face the danger of falling into oblivion as they are not included in any correspondence that lays out awards in full detail. Nevertheless, one can always trace films that must not elude our attention, even if they have not made it to the winners’ list. Such were the cases of the films Reset directed by Min Bae and The Parallel Currents directed by Pablo Chavanel, featured in the Competition section of the 9th Beyond Borders Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival.

Reset unfolds an unfathomable tragedy that immersed the heart and soul of an entire nation into despair and frustrating self-reflection. The Sewol ferry sinking in April 2014, which cost the lives of 304 passengers, the vast majority of whom were highschool students, went way beyond the scope of a maritime disaster, leaving an indelible scar on the collective psyche of South Korea. Reset initially (and wisely I may add) stays away from any emotional culmination while unraveling the backbone of its story; cold-blooded facts and evidence portrayed in the archival footage are more than enough to give you the chills. No surprise, therefore, that empathy will first derive from detachment. The outrageous lack of accountability, the deadpan expressions of the true culprits, the ice-cold indifference displayed by the highest ranks of political authority, the agonizing questions fueled by the shadowy aspects of a calamity that could have been avoided just by implementing standardized procedures, the mind-numbing amateurism in the media coverage, as well as the silent cry of guilt from an entire country towards the younger generations, are best unveiled in their monstrous dimensions through this clinical tone.

Later on and as the heart-wrenching recording of fallacies and responsibilities is concluded, the blunt chronicle of events is juxtaposed against a deeply personal touch that gets us entangled in the maze of unresolved grief and constant torment. As the ordeal of the mourning parents permeates under our skin, Reset gradually evolves into a meticulous study on loss and endurance. Struggling to keep the memory alive and seek justice, while finding refuge and comfort to the fellow sufferers, along with the dreadful realization that refusing to let go keeps you locked up in the prison of your mind; it simply cannot get any more suffocating (and noble) than that. By the end of this painful journey, the film’s title emits a plangent woe: amidst such darkness how can we refrain from going back in time and fantasizing an imaginary reset?

The Parallel Currents comes as a low-key and transcendental complement to Reset, touching upon the moral duty of remembrance and the disheartening awareness that violence keeps finding its way to surface even if disguised under the labels of modernization and growth.  Samnang is an indigenous community activist fighting against the proliferation of hydroelectric dams on the Mekong River, while Sothy is a painter and survival of the Khmer Rouge genocide refusing to allow the unhealed traumas of the past go down the drain of modern-day Cambodia’s economic miracle. As their seemingly unconnected stories stream in parallel currents (pun intended), an uncanny feeling of oneness starts to emerge.

The distant howling of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the name of a deranged cleansing and the otherworldly urban landscape of Phnom Penh (a mausoleum, a megalopolis, a fascinating loophole in time and a cement landfill at once) are unconsciously intertwined with the images of a pristine nature under the imminent threat of eradication and the subdued whispers of marginalized minorities ostracized from the official frame, formulating a discomforting reminder. The inherent fragility of historical memory is inextricably linked with our times’ self-justification of seizing and looting. More than often, the edifice of a so-called new era is built on the most abstract yet tangible foundation: erased traces and repressed guilt.

Georgios Papadimitriou
Edited by Savina Petkova
© FIPRESCI 2024