My Fifth Film From the Venice Film Festival

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MOVIE REVIEW
To the North
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Genre: Thriller
Year Released: 2022
Runtime: 2h 3m
Director(s): Mihai Mincan
Writer(s): Mihai Mincan
Cast: Nikolai Becker, Olivier Chen, Soliman Cruz, Emmanuel Sto. Domingo, Bartholome Guingona, Olivier Ho Hio Heen, Alexandre Nguyen, Dimitar Vasilev
Where To Watch: Premiering in Venice on 9/5

Another film based on a true story and another nominee for the Venice Horizons Award. This movie was so enjoyable; it was a story of extremes. There were moments where it felt like nothing was going to happen, and then there were moments of nonstop action that legitimately was almost overwhelming in a good way.

The film takes place entirely in a self-contained “world,” but it’s so vast that it never feels claustrophobic except when the director wants it to. Ironically I wrote this before reading the director’s commentary on the film, and he mentions this exact topic in a question someone asked him. “Tight corridors and rooms VS the endless ocean: that was like a mirror for the “trapped VS free” theme I was interested in exploring.”

While the film had vital religious elements, it wasn’t in your face. It felt like a natural extension of the story. There was a solid good vs. evil storyline that lends itself to the comparisons the story goes through. The back and forth and balancing made the story come to life through the characters. There wasn’t a time that you felt like they were carrying the load themselves. Instead, it felt like they were working with the story to tell it from within.

One of the most interesting aspects of films like this is that they are often by directors and cast that I’m unfamiliar with. Oftentimes being firsts for them as well, this allows an almost untarnished version of the story to be told. I don’t have expectations, and they have the freedom to tell the story they want to tell without having to live up to these preconceived ideas of what they’ve done before. That doesn’t always work out, but more often than not, it allows for their vision to be translated to the screen in a unique way.

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