Free Film Screening:
Wood and Water
(Jonas Bak, 2021, 79 min, Germany/France/Hong Kong, in German, English, and Cantonese with English subtitles, Color, DCP)
Jonas Bak’s deeply moving first feature portrays Anke, a recently retired widow living in Germany’s Black Forest region, passing a quiet domestic life of lonely meals and Tai Chi practice via YouTube. She makes a bold decision to visit her youngest son, who lives in Hong Kong and has found too many reasons to postpone his visits home. A brilliant, disorienting transition between the tranquil forests of Germany and the towering skyscrapers of Hong Kong introduces a new tone to the film’s second half. (The film is shot in lush and patient 16mm with music by Brian Eno.) Anke’s son is still nowhere to be found, so she must carefully make her own way through the city, getting by with a little English and making small but restorative connections with strangers. Anke is played by the filmmaker’s own mother, and her performance is astonishingly serene and naturalistic. Her son’s film shares these qualities, opening up ever-wider in its final moments, as Anke’s tentatively reinvigorating journey resumes amidst a Hong Kong on the brink of brutal transformation.
Screen/Society screenings are free and open to the public. (COVID-19 Info)
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