CIFF Notes: The Tsugua Diaries (Friday, Oct 22 - 8pm)

I was fortunate enough to see eight films over the final three days of the 2021 Chicago International Film Festival, and my first screening was The Tsugua Diaries directed by Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes. The first two films in Gomes's The Arabian Nights trilogy were definitely among my favorite films of 2016, so this new collaboration with his wife and creative partner Fazendeiro was highly anticipated and ended up being my favorite of the films I saw this past weekend. I say that still kind of stunned by how beautifully this film triumphs over three factors that might likely result in something much more self-indulgent than this gorgeously made and subtly hilarious meditation on pandemic living and creativity: 1) that it's a "pandemic" film, and 2) that it's told in reverse chronology--that is, the "diary" of the title begins on Day 21 and each segment of the film moves backwards from there, ending with scenes from Day 1, and 3) that it is, ultimately, a work of meta-cinema. 

Perhaps I bristle too quickly at the thought of a "pandemic" film, as well as the idea that we'll spend a lot of time trying to define just what a "pandemic" film is in the coming years, possibly to no useful end, but The Tsugua Diaries clearly acknowledges that it was shot during lockdown (in sunny Sintra, Portugal), and within it's storytelling makes one of the most poignant and effectively satirical  commentaries on the last year and half that I've seen in any form. While I admit to largely avoiding "pandemic cinema," it's hard to imagine I'll see anything that captures both the absurdity of class privilege in the midst of our collective crisis, while also channeling the creative impulse through that crisis with such fruitful experimentation. This feels hand-made in the best ways--inspired and playful and ultimately yielding something of a quality that outshines many an under-pressure-of-quarantine art project.

An effective commentary on our collective pandemic experience might be enough for one film to pull off, but The Tsugua Diaries is also remarkably rich in a variety of other ways. The film has at it's center three enchanting actors--Crista Alfaiate (Crista), Carloto Cotta (Carloto), and João Nunes Monteiro (João)--and begins (at the end, so to speak) by observing some of their mundane and fairly decontextualized activities--a bit of partying and possible romance--primarily focusing on their attempts to build a small structure to house butterflies. As the days tick backwards, the film uses it's reverse structure in such a subtle way that it avoids all sense of potential gimmickry, and displays just how patient and poetic the teamed-up Fazendeiro and Gomes are in their technique. The Tsugua Diaries is elegantly constructed, never trying to fool or alienate the audience with it's construction, but pull them closer in. 

The third element of the film that might feel self-indulgent in lesser hands is the meta-cinematic aspects, or the way in which the film is about it's own construction. Incorporating the filmmaking process as part of the narrative of the film is a common feature of Gomes' work, and how Fazendeiro and Gomes integrate this meta-move is better left unpacked for potential viewers--it's not like this is the next M. Night Shyamalan picture (thank goodness), and the effect is something that is revealed progressively, rather than as a surprise, one-note twist. In fact, the "reveal" of The Tsugua Diaries is so perfectly folded into the film, which is continually folding itself back through time, guiding you gently, simultaneously, forward and backward, that it takes on a deeply poetic quality, albeit one that maintains a wry and perceptive sense of humor. What I will give away is that within that gentle manipulation of time and cinematic reality, a surprisingly trenchant conversation about the nature of film performance occurs, that in it's own playful way brings out a question that emerged for me throughout the final weekend of the CIFF in the works of directors like Hong Sang-soo, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi. All the films I saw over the weekend by these masterful directors take a different approach to many of these same themes and play in their own ways with the borders of "narrativity" and "activity"--"seeming" and "being." Many of these films were much more serious in tone, though not without their own sense of humor, and while they're a rich lot of films, none of them held for me the memorable beauty, joy, and strangeness of The Tsugua Diaries.

Finally, this film brought to my attention this great jam by Frankie Valli and the Fours Seasons: The Night. What a song. It's used so perfectly as a sort of bookend to the film and captures the spirit perfectly.