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Ága, A Film of Limitless Beauty and Sadness in the Face of Modernity
It is challenging to describe the visual sonnet of Ága because whatever I say as a reviewer will not do this film justice. It is sublime in its truth and ironically candid in its fiction. Bulgarian filmmaker Milko Lazarov is compelled by forces bigger than himself as profound, mysterious and expansive as the snow-covered tundra of the far off arctic, where his dramatic story takes place. Shot in Yakutia, Russia this allegorical fable speaks softly from an obscure world of self-sufficient primitive life, yet shouts into the greater society of modernity that we are losing our moral connection to family and community; becoming rootless and obligated to achieve and plunder from the riches of the world in which we seek to conquer. Consequently, we are also pillaging and destroying our environment and maybe “heading towards an apocalypse” as the filmmaker says during one interview.
Ága begins with the main character Nanook plunging a harpoon into the ice, digging a hole where he will attempt to catch fish but he returns home empty-handed to his devoted wife Sedna. They discuss the old days when their world was rich with sustenance. The animals they have always depended on become scarce and die inexplicably while buzzards circle waiting for death hovering in the sky and casting their ominous shadows on the cold landscape. When Nanook…
