The Year of the Everlasting Storm

"The Year Of The Everlasting Storm"

A love letter to cinema, shot across 'The US', Iran, Chile, China and Thailand, by seven of today's most vital filmmakers. New life in the old house. A breakaway, a reunion. Surveillance and reconciliation. An unrecognizable world, in the year of the everlasting storm. Jafar Panahi, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Laura Poitras and other heavyweights of global cinema reflect on 2020 in this sweeping auteur anthology film for the age of 'COVID'.

As a result of 'The COVID-19' pandemic, film production came to a halt in March of 2020 and filmmakers across the world were confined to their homes. The work and daily life of the film industry and film culture were destabilized. In a few short weeks, modes of socializing, working, and consuming were radically altered. Filmmaking as we knew it had reached a standstill, deemed unsafe indefinitely. The film is made under a state-imposed stay-at-home order, forbidden from writing screenplays or directing films. The films finds an innovative and audacious way to comment on the circumstances and absurdity of his confinement. Co-directing inside their apartments, the filmmakers eliminated all but the essential modes of filmmaking to connect, collaborate, and create in the face of limitation and an uncertain future. The result, "The Year Of The Everlasting Storm", is a beguiling, self-reflexive statement on the enduring spirit of artists. Inspired by creativity and ingenuity in a unique circumstances, the documentary wants to challenge artists around the world to reimagine the boundaries of filmmaking and film production and embrace limitations to tell diverse, personal stories that reflect and respond to this moment of distance and isolation. The shoot is confined to the location of filmmaker quarantine. The filmmakers not shoot in public spaces. The cast and crew is limited to those in quarantine on location. Props, costumes, and production equipment is limited to those onsite. All genres and modes of filmmaking are encouraged but temporal and geographic continuity is maintained. Animation, archival and browser action are all permitted, as long as there's evidence within the film that it takes place in the here and now. Production and post-production crew members work from home.

Over the course of the summer of 2020, the ground of the pandemic began to shift underneath us, along with the scientific community's guidance. Each country has it's own approach to the pandemic. And even within each country, nothing is static. Some of the original rules no longer make sense. Much like every individual during this pandemic, we quickly find ourselves in a position to arbitrate between which rules could be broken and which could not. In life, rules are broken for reasons both practical and poetic. In art, it's the same. Shot in secret during the pandemic, "The Year Of The Everlasting Storm" comprises seven shorts from some of the filmmaking firmament's most acclaimed names. Billed as a true love letter to the storytelling power of the moving image, these collected tales are deeply personal responses to life under lockdown and, together, make up an extraordinary cinematic journal chronicling human existence during what's an unheralded historical moment.

Written by Gregory Mann.

How about I've only watched 10 minutes and it feels like an hour? If this is the power of cinema, I'll stick with books. I'll continue this review so it will meet the minimum length requirements, but really we can both save a lot of TIME and take my word for it. No plot, no point, no pleasure.

I've faithfully watched this documentary-like movie. The best one among these segments is the 2nd Chinese one that had fully portrayed the tough situation during the long lock-down in Wuhan, the family, a young couple and their little son, all of them suffered a great deal of miseries. Their marriage is on the rock, the husband seemingly lost his car sales job, their little kid is completely stressed out.... On and on, this segment is a real movie performed by two great young actors with a so great kid actor. I could never imagine a kid would be able to act like a real son to these two actors.

The 2nd better one is the 1st Iranian one. Told us a 90 years old granny tried to visit her children during the severe pandemic that hit Iran so abruptly hard. The huge lizard and the granny are the two bright spots in.

I have to say that the 3rd segment may be the worst. The 4th one about spying on people with malware is just too long that really need your patience. All the other segments are just too bad and insignificant to watch; I can only use one word to describe all of the bad ones except the 1st and the 2nd ones. For the 2nd one, I'll rate it 8 or 9 out of 10. The 1st one 6-7/10. The 3rd one, a California one, 0-1/10. The 4th, 6/10; if you have the patience to sit it through. As to those left, the last one from Thailand, 0/10; even worse than the 3rd part.

With 2020 undeniably marked by the coronavirus, filmmakers had to try a new way of making movies. For "The Year of the Everlasting Storm", a number of directors contributed to a project focusing on how the lockdowns had affected everyone. Probably the most significant is Laura Poitras's focus on an Israeli company's manufacturing of spyware used by the governments of the US, Mexico, Spain and Togo (something that Israel's supporters - one might call them cultists - are sure to deny).

This movie - a collaboration of the US, Chile, Iran, China and Thailand - isn't a masterpiece, but is a perceptive look at how artists can persist in trying times. I don't know if it's available on any streaming service, so you'll have to check out the neighborhood video stores (yes, they still exist).

Video mix tape of short films for messed up Covid times. Not sure on the shelf-life but as we gaze at 2.5 years and the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, maybe I'm underestimating this collection and the virus.

So even if the films are not tightly united there is something to the curation and ordering of them. (Well unless they are displayed chronologically or by the director's birth month or some other sort mechanism).

The first and last were directors I have seen before Jafar Panahi's is the most warm, and includes the symbolism of an egg hatching, so it felt the vaguely optimistic, although apparently Farsi politeness has a fair amount of "I would die for you" which adds a taste of sour to sweetness between a grandmother and her granddaughter.

Then the closing film is devoid of any humans. But scores and scores of insects, are they meant to be bug and akin to the virus. Or are these insects what all that will be left when the last human succumbs. The director is Apichatpong Weerasethakul who often experimental even when their is a narrative of sorts. He does have the glaring lights on beds which reminded me of his excellent "Cemetery of Splendor."

I would strongly recommend watching that over this collection, but the collection still had its moments. And if you likely quirky, deeply personal independent films then you can hang with this. And you might appreciate seeing artistic responses to what you are dealing with in your Covid seclusion/bubble/glaring neon lights in your egg space. You are not alone.

Looking at the other films...

David Lowery is NOT the Camper Van Beethoven musician fella, but this Lowery did have Bill Callahan (from the group Smog) and his pipes handle the narration of a very interesting dreamlike take on a secret Cemetery with no Splendor.

The entry from Chile had heart and some hope, a pandemic baby reunites a family sort of, at least via a pulley over a balcony. The entry from China must have been the longest, and it captured the futile existence for too many during Covid (also purportedly was in Wuhan, ground zero).

I admit to not knowing enough about Project Pegasus beforehand. That film was a confounding mess, but it did trigger more searching online, which makes it important I think. As subsequent reading has me more concerned than the shot. Also "Terror Contagion" has Brian Eno making music so that was a plus.

I guess the pandemic makes our phone virus susceptibility even higher. This was the weak part of the collection on several levels, but somehow it lead me to. Bill Marcazk who seems like a really really good dude.

Mallik Vitthal's entry was colorful, lively and it seemed like the pandemic was the latest in too many setbacks for. Bobby Yay Yay Jones and his family. It's short and bittersweet, but I hope his perseverance is ultimately the most contagious element from these times and the seven films spawned by them.