Review of “The Physics of Sorrow” (2019)
Seen in 2020.
The story seems ill conceived and badly told. My impression was that it’s supposed to be Ariadne’s thread in the labyrinth of Minos as a metaphor for the meaning of the life of a soldier whose existence is also the existence of everything else, crammed into a time capsule. Much of the encaustic-painting imagery is pretty, but some cuts are rushed. Like the director’s “Blood Manifesto” (2016), it’s a personal affair, despite being based on the 2012 novel. If you’ve read the novel, the film probably makes a lot more sense. The pictures alone, unfortunately, don’t make enough of an experience.