LOS ANGELES — Where they live there is no horizon. There is only the dazzling white snow that stretches all around them as far as the eye can see. And then it transforms seamlessly into a sky that is exactly the same color. The white world encloses them like goldfish in a glass bowl.
The film is called Aga, and it was written and directed by Milko Lazarov. It is Bulgaria’s entry into the 2019 Academy Awards competition as Best International Feature Film and it has already won four major awards at European film festivals.
It is an amazingly beautiful film, but it might be a little slow-moving for an impatient American audience. That’s because it moves in the slow pace of these people’s life.
Nanook (played by Mikhail Aprosimov) and his wife Sedna (Feodosia Ivanova) live in a yurt in Siberia, all alone on the open plain. Their home consists of long poles placed diagonally and covered with multiple layers of animal skins. Inside are more skins that serve as beds and blankets, skins that line the inside walls for warmth, and a small round stove that Sedna uses to cook their meals, which always begin with a pot of boiling water that she melts from snow, and into which she drops the fish that Nanook has retrieved through a hole he has chopped in the hard-packed ice.
Their son and daughter have moved on. He, Cena, lives in “the city” (which is never identified) and she, Aga, has run away and works in a diamond mine. Without human companionship Nanook and Sedna rely on a wonderful dog who plows tirelessly through the endless snow, pulling a sled that Nanook has loaded with tree trunks or huge blocks of ice or other supplies that he uses to build or fix things around the yurt.
Sometimes the couple talk to each other in their Inuit language, Yakut, and sometimes they show their affection by smiling at each other, especially when Sedna trims his hair and mustache with a large kitchen knife. And they sing together and he helps her weave a large net, and they tell each other their dreams and fantasies when they wake in the morning.
At one point Cena arrives for an overnight visit. He drives a strange motorcycle contraption with a small cart behind it, and brings various small presents to his parents. He is reticent, but eventually reveals to his parents where Aga is, and Sedna immediately sets about making a beautiful hat from the skin of a dead white fox that their dog had found.
It is her dream to visit her daughter, but she doesn’t make it, and in the end Nanook makes that lonely trip alone.
Aga is a sweet, poignant story that engages the audience with exceptionally long closeups and panoramas of the stunning environment, and even though it’s a quiet, simple story, it’s a fascinating view, that, for most of us, provides a glimpse into a very unfamiliar culture.
Aga will arrive at the Laemmle Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., in Los Angeles, on Friday, Sept. 27th and will be screened soon after around the city.
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Cythia Citron is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via cythia.citron@sdjewishworld.com