Day Night Day Night (2006) Reviews

• Nice change of pace

  matt-27272009-09-11

  I am disappointed to read that other viewers were bored. From the preview it was obvious to me that this would not be a popcorn-movie or summer blockbuster. I enjoyed how minimal and deliberate the film is. If you are looking for an action movie, go rent 'True Lies'. If you are interested in a beautifully restrained, patient film that humanizes people on both sides of the conflict rather than than making a suicide bomber a one-dimensional villain, this movie is for you. It takes skill and courage for a filmmaker to attempt to tell a story almost completely with images. Very little dialogue. No gun fights or car chases. Not that there's anything wrong with a fun, action-packed movie. This film is deliberately slow and was a welcome break from the usual pacing of mainstream films.

• TIFF review (spoiler free)

  rotcohen2006-09-16

  A stark wisp of a film, 'Day Night Day Night' was a last second addition to my festival-going experience, on this the last day of the festival. Each year I try to attend something I know very little about and this entry in the Visions program of the festival sparked my interest by its air of mystery: a story that for the first half of the film follows an unspecified woman spending what appears to be her last night on earth in a hotel room, followed by a tension-building second day on the streets of New York. The less you know about the story the better the experience. The actress who plays the central character, on screen every moment of the film, is mesmerizing as the somewhat clumsy yet fanatic young woman at a precarious crossroad in her life; much of the film is comprised of extreme close-ups of her face, the flaring nostrils and heavy breathing alerting us to the dark thoughts running through her mind. The audience is given very little back story of what brought her to this hotel room awaiting her fate, and the ambiguity pays off in the second half preventing the thrust of her mission from going down a well-trod path. This film could have easily stopped at a couple different junctures and been less successful as result, however the director keeps the story moving towards a surprisingly heart-wrenching moment that validates its whole purpose. Grade: 8/10

• Unique, Creepy, Slow

  eddie-1772007-09-15

  Caught this at an art theater last night, and the crowd afterward was split about 50/50 as to how they received the film. One side admitted that the film was unique while avoiding any trace of pretentiousness and that Loktev was captivating. Still, these people felt that the film’s incredibly slow pace was too much to bear. I understand this sentiment, but I don't agree with it. Likewise, just about everyone thought the film was very creepy, and while this turned on many in the art-house crowd, it repelled nearly as many. Personally, I like creepy movies, and I thought the creepiness was magnified wonderfully by the slow pace. It felt like a snuff film combined with soft-core child porn combined with _The Passion of Joan of Arc_. Seriously, it was that creepy. And that added creepiness greatly to the suspense—I literally jumped a little bit out of my chair at one point, and I can only remember doing that a handful of times in my history of movie-going. Still, I don’t know whether or not the slow pace would hold up well to repeated viewings, and it's not like the pacing was perfect; shaving ten minutes overall probably would have helped. But I still think the film was effective and unique enough to deserve a high rating.

• an astonishing work of art

  Buddy-512008-07-28

  When Hannah Arendt coined the expression "the banality of evil," surely she must have had something like "Day Night Day Night" in mind. With chilling detachment, this brilliant and terrifying film chronicles the last 48 hours in the life of a potential suicide bomber. It is a topic rife with all sorts of potential pitfalls, both political and cinematic, yet the movie succeeds as a work of art because it never resorts to sensationalism or exploitation to get its point across. Filmmaker Julia Loktey has deliberately eliminated any back story that might explain why a beautiful young girl like "Leah" would be willing to perform an action as inconceivable and incomprehensible as the one she has planned here. The whys and the wherefores are really of little concern to Loktey. Instead, she has chosen to concentrate on the almost strikingly banal, step-by-step process "Leah" must go through to complete the deed. Indeed, it's amazing how, through context alone, even the most mundane of actions - brushing one's teeth, taking a bath, clipping one's toenails - can suddenly become imbued with the most terrifying significance and sense of foreboding. It's almost as if "Leah" is trying to hold onto a sense of normalcy for as long as she can, savoring the minor pleasures of life that she knows she will never experience again. In fact, in the stunning final half hour of the film, as "Leah" roams around the streets of New York City trying to summon up the courage to fulfill her mission, she begins to cling more and more to the simple joys of life - a mustard-covered pretzel, a candy apple - before taking that final plunge into the abyss. What's particularly disturbing is how unfailingly sweet and polite "Leah" is to the people around her - be they the common pedestrians or storekeepers who could easily become her victims, or the masked men who calmly, almost apologetically, feed her instructions on what she is to do when the fateful moment arrives. The scene in which they dress "Leah" up in terrorist garb and methodically "direct" her for a video that will be released after her death is one of the most chilling in the entire film. Luisa Williams, who is never off camera for a single moment in the film, delivers an astonishing tour-de-force performance that is guaranteed to leave the audience stunned into silence. With very little in the way of dialogue to work with, Williams is forced to rely almost exclusively on facial expression and body language to convey a wealth of emotion. The incongruity between the character's sweet personality and demeanor and the horrific act of violence she is about to commit throws us completely off balance and makes us call into question our own perception of the world and the way it works. Loktey employs documentary-style realism to tell her story, using her camera to record, almost as a dispassionate observer, the events as they unfold in the course of that 48-hour period. "Day Night Day Night" contains more nerve-wracking suspense than a boatload of standard thrillers, yet it is a suspense that is honestly earned, for Loktey never stoops to implausible timing or hokey contrivance to create her effect. This is the stuff of real life - with all its attendant unpredictability and ironies - unfolding before us. We are forever focused on this young lady, who remains a fascinating and terrifying enigma throughout the entire hour-and-a-half that we spend with her. Stated simply, "Day Night Day Night" is one of the most riveting and important releases of 2007.

• Hugely Disappointing

  Cory_Bouffard2008-11-08

  Day Night Day Night could possibly be the culprit for Joe Blow's distaste for independent films and their attempts at capturing the essence of humanity using shaky-cam directing and pitiful dialog that is painful to listen to. Almost all art house cinema appeal to a narrow audience but still retain the vital elements of film that anyone can appreciate. This movie fails in the latter respect. There are only subtle traces of character development. Please note, revealing preexisting attributes of a character is not the same as character development. For the first 30 minutes of exposition (and the next...and the next...) we learn very little about our protagonist. Perhaps we'll watch She clip her toe nails, brush her teeth, get dressed, sit, blink a few times, flip the lights on and off, look out a window, perhaps digest her pizza and silently break wind, etc, and in the end something will bond each stray element of seemingly mundane activity that we've forced ourselves to sit through into a cohesive story. Which is what this film lacks, story. The film is a penguin waddling along, hefting a fat belly of exposition, vainly flapping it's tiny wings for a takeoff. We the viewer are aware that this film is a penguin and penguins can't fly, but we're willing to discard logic for hope, hope that this penguin might get a little assistance in the way of a cliché gust of wind that would just hurry us along to the inevitable. If you'd like to watch a girl walk around chewing her cud into a boom Mic (which probably accounts for 15 minutes of run time, She chewing pizza, a candy apple, pudding, Chinese food, a soft pretzel, etc) this film is for you. For anyone wishing to make a remake, film yourself taking care of your morning routine in a hotel bathroom, walking around Times Square buying and eating food, and carrying a heavy backpack through crosswalks. That's about how exciting this entire film is. If you're like me, the only reason you watched it all is because you are anal and must watch a fim from start to finish once you've committed. It's pretty bad.