The first act of a film sets up the plot, the beginning of the story. The act is a series of events, called scenes, which move the viewer though situations with the characters to develop the story. This first act takes up about a third of the entire film. And in this third of the film you learn about the characters through scenes that might not have much to do with the plot of the film but that nonetheless serves to create some sort of understanding of the characters, maybe to create an emotional attachment with these characters which will later pay off when these characters are in a tough predicament. The conflict. But I digress.
You could start the opening on a wide shot of some place, maybe some people are visible but are very small on the screen within this place. You might cut in closer on those people, and that is when you might hear and see them begin to speak. Their faces are centered in the frame and they are very visible due to the proper lighting. They speak about something which gives you some understanding of them or where we are heading as viewers. Just before the first scene ends, you cut back out to a wider shot signifying their physical situation, and putting a distance between us and them, back to where we began. This is standard. True.
The first shot of Day Night Day Night does something else. Before one can adjust in their seat as the lights dim and the screen sparks up (there were few to no trailers or commercials before most of the films at this festival) we see the first frame and hear a girl's voice. We cannot see the girl clearly for she is a shadowy silhouette in profile. She speaks quickly in a whisper. We must be guided with English subtitles; though later it becomes clear she speaks perfect English. I cannot recall the exact opening monologue but the girl speaks of God and being chosen and obeying and not failing, she speaks in haste, and we must struggle to stay understand because we could easily miss everything. For what seems like a minute, only quicker, the frame is still and she speaks like this. There is a light moving quickly behind her. And this is how one of the most involved and intense first scenes, in a single frame, in a film begins. This was at the New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw.
The side of the bus opens and legs come into frame. Luggage is grabbed and the legs walk away, a shot done like some comic strip, flat, but conveying enough information to get it. Cut. We are behind the shoulders of a dark haired girl who seems lost, is walking up escalators in this bus station, the camera reminiscent of the Darden brother's style, shaky, like documentary footage, real. She is bumping into people. The environment spinning like a whirlpool around our seemingly grounded figure, she is turning around, her face not exposed to the viewer. It is like this at a moment later when we sense urgency or maybe fear at the suddenly increased pace of the camera's movements
and for a moment from profile the face looks at us and we are met with an odd gaze from dark eyes and high cheekbones and thick dark lips, maybe a native American, maybe middle eastern, odd and mysterious. Before we can really take this view in she turns away, in search of someone or something. A phone rings, she hangs it up. It rings again and this time she picks up. A steady and calculated voice sounds out telling her to go to the parking lot where someone is waiting for her. She responds. Her voice is soft and weak. She is compliant and well mannered. Thank you. Where is this leading to? We are taken with her in a car with an Asian driver and then to a hotel room where the blinds are instantly closed. From over exposed brightness to unclear darkness. Stand here, the Asian guy says and leaves. She cleans herself obsessively, scrubbing her body, clipping her nails. She is preparing for something big. Is she some sex slave? Has she been purchased for sex labor? Just one thought about the possibilities of what could be happening. The handcuffs she is commanded to put on by the voice from the phone can attest to this. And at this time, the simplicity of the shots, the nearly static camera, scrubbing and washing, the voice on the phone, the tension and eeriness, the girls face, her willingness for all this and even duty, is the work of a very detail oriented and inventive writer and observer. A name I had not heard of before this film, Julia Lotkev, the filmmaker behind Day Night Day Night is the second feature of this new gal on the block. And she has definitely something to show off with this film.
We learn that this nameless girl is a suicide bomber. Her target, which we discover nearly three fifths of the way through, is times square, New York. But in this case, unlike in Paradise Now, we never understand the reasons for these actions. Though her hasty personal monologues of fanatical devotion they occur a few times in the film but none are as intense as the opener clue us in to what spiritual voyage she might be dealing with (something we can in a vague or personal way parallel with our own convictions) it is still just vague and unclear and does not hint at any kind of Islamic hatred to the west. And it is this quiet inner turmoil or love of hate which is leading this young and fragile girl to kill herself and others.
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