The Loneliest Planet

So. 

I knew something was supposed to ~happen~. I'm pretty sure it's in the description for the movie. As a matter of fact, let me go check the imdb page right now to see.

Yep.

"An engaged couple's backpacking trip in the Caucasus Mountains is derailed by a single misstep that threatens to undo everything the pair believed about each other and about themselves." 

I didn't read the "single misstep" bit before watching the film. I just knew there was a thing that was going to happen that would CHANGE EVERYTHING. I thought it was going to be some horrible incident. Like, the woman would be raped or someone would fall down a mountain or some shit. 

Also, there were a lot of shots like this

where they'd all stop and look around sort of fearfully. I kept expecting THAT HORRIBLE THING to happen. 

There's this scene

where Dato ties a string around Nica's wrist and she starts to panic a little. I was totally suspicious of Dato for the entire first half of the movie. He just seemed shady. Was that done intentionally? Or am I just kinda racist? Like, it seems he might be overcharging the couple to aid them on their little adventure. Right away I'm like OH GOD. Later, he makes a joke about some flowers being poisonous after he tells Nica and Alex to eat them, which they do. I REALLY THOUGHT THE FLOWERS WERE POISONOUS OR THAT THEY'D CAUSE THE TWO TO PASS OUT OR SOMETHING SO DATO COULD SELL NICA INTO SEX TRAFFICKING. Also, that bit made me really start to believe Nica and Alex were a bit daft. Why did they not question what would happen if they ate the flowers? Dato just goes "eat this" and they do??? I get they trusted him, but why? How naive. Idk, why are they like this?? Am I wrong for being suspicious? Like, ultimately, Dato turned out to be an alright, pretty cool dude. But how did Nica and Alex know that? Idk they just seemed quite dumb. Or maybe the word for it is...adventurous? Ugh, whatever. I GUESS. 

Anyway, all that was to say that I suspected THE BIG THING to be something...cliche, I guess. A rape or a robbery or someone being severely injured. Something along those lines. I was not expecting

this^. 

It's a really great moment. I laughed out loud. It happens in like a split second and it's soooo good. It totally makes up for the first, like, fifty minutes of The Meandering Adventures of Nica, Alex and Dato. It makes up for Nica conjugating Spanish verbs or whatever the fuck she was doing. Like, thanks for the lesson, but this is a bit...boring? 

I did quite like watching her wash her hair, though.

Hani Furstenberg is insanely pretty and looks almost exactly like Liv Ullmann?? So, her face distracted me from my mild to crippling boredom for the first half. 

But back to THE THING.

Because after THE THING, I became more engrossed in the film. 

Some dudes come through while Nica, Alex and Dato are resting. They look really backwoods. I am immediately like OKAY HERE WE GO. 

There are three of them. They start conversing with Dato in another language and the conversation appears really intense and aggressive. The whole time one of the dudes keeps pointing at Nica and Alex. Naturally, Alex steps up and is like "What's going on?" or something like that. Did I mention one of these dudes has a gun? Cuz one of them does. That one immediately steps up to jut his rifle in Alex' s face. Alex's response is to grab Nica and use her as his fucking shield. 

IT'S SOOOOOO GOOD. 

He realizes what he's done and slowly moves Nica behind him. I'm laughing like YOU CAN'T EVER TAKE THAT BACK. 

Here I will say that I am long time fan of Gael García Bernal. I'll watch anything he's in, unfortunately. He's good. He played this moment really well. I just love his face all throughout this moment. I also really loved the way he played the last half of the movie, but I'll get to that in a minute. 

Anyway, the dude with the rifle is like NAH, SON, IT'S GOOD, and lowers his weapon. He offers a pair of sunglasses to Alex to give to Nica.  

Alex hesitates to take them but eventually does. He then takes off some cheap ass bracelet he's wearing and offers it to the man, who declines it.

I almost felt like the man was embarrassed for Alex and that was his sole reason for dropping his rifle. Or maybe once he saw this public display of pussiness he quickly realized Alex wasn't a threat and therefore no longer needed to have his rifle all up in his face. Either way, LOL. 

So after this scene, a huge chunk of the rest of the movie is like 

this^. Sort of this zombie-esque walking from Nica with Alex following off to the side or behind in silence. 

Watching these idiots walk about in the first half of the movie was quite boring to me. The movie is really pretty and the couple is super cute and stuff, but it was just a lot of nothingess. To me, anyway. 

But after Alex uses Nica as a human shield, watching them walk becomes like the most entertaining thing in the world. EVERYTHING IS SO LOADED. I'm going crazy like WHAT ARE THEY THINKING, WHAT'S GOING THROUGH NICA'S MIND RIGHT NOW??, IT'S NOT LIKE EITHER OF THEM CAN ESCAPE ANYWHERE, IT'S NOT LIKE ONE OF THEM CAN JUST HOP ON A BUS OR SOMETHING AND PEACE OUT, THEY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! THEY ARE TOTALLY BREAKING UP WHEN THEY GET BACK HOME.

There's quite a bit of silent walking with a lot of body language to play off. Nica seems to be trying to...process, while Alex just seems sort of sad and disappointed with himself. I felt really awkward watching them. At one point Nica stops to shake a rock from her boot. She has to take off her backpack to do so. Alex walks over to help her put her backpack on once she's done shaking the rock out. He holds the bag out for her to slip her arms into; she does this uncomfortable little dance where she avoids slipping into the straps. Instead, she just takes the bag from him and puts it on herself. 

This had me thinking the rest of the movie would be like this with them and there would erupt a huge explosion from one or both of them. But then a short scene later Nica offers Alex some sort of dried fruit. He declines and it's awkward. I felt sort of bad for Nica. Like, she was extending herself to say "Okay, I'm getting over it a little bit." But he pushes her away?? I mean, I get that he was probably too preoccupied with hating himself to eat, but still. 

Alex seems to continue on this self-punishing streak. The three of them are taking a break during a rainstorm under a poncho when Alex excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Nica tells him to take a poncho BECAUSE IT IS POURING RAINING. He doesn't. She appears worried for him, so goes out to find whatever tree he's peeing on. 

I really loved that scene (and I'm so mad I couldn't lazily find a screencap of it on goggle images) because Nica comes out wearing her poncho and sees Alex emerging from the trees and he looks so sad and is drenched and she tries to put some of her poncho over his little sad, wet head. Omg, I almost cried. It was touching...or something? I liked seeing her open back up after her near total shut down after that whole Alex using her as a human shield thing.

I started feeling like...maybe they'll be okay? But then a bit later Nica falls into a stream. 

The three of them are crossing a stream. Dato goes across first, leaving Nica and Alex on the other side. Alex motions for Nica to go before him. Nica is like No, it's alright, you go. And here I am like, OH GOD. It's totally her saying, "You are not my protector". So, Alex goes across. Then, Nica, who immediately falls in. It's Dato who's watching when she does. He immeditely jumps up to go in to save her. Nica clings to his neck for dear life. When Alex goes over to take her from Dato's arms she nearly jumps away from him. IT WAS SO PAINFUL TO WATCH. Also, I totally thought Nica did this on purpose. Like, she fell into the water on purpose. It just seemed too perfect of a compliment to her telling Alex to cross first. 

Anyway, I think after this there's a pretty long scene at the campfire where Nica and Dato are talking and singing and Alex is just off to the side in total silence. Eventually he goes to bed, and leaves Nica and Dato to themselves. They get drunk and Dato gets into some personal shit. Then, they make-out for a bit before Nica pushes Dato away. Here, I am not quite sure what was going on. The theme is loneliness probably. Dato tells this story about his wife and kid and stuff and it's super depressing, and it reveals that he's quite alone. And...I think, Alex using Nica as a human shield revealed to her that she was quite alone, too. Like, maybe before all that she thought she had this crazy soulmate partner in him, but in one super small moment he proved her totally wrong. So, she's a bit lost. Or, all of them are? THE LONELIEST PLANET.

Really, I am just trying to work out ~what this all means~. I am quite dumb, so something obvious to most everyone else needs to be worked out by me rambling on for ages and ages until I make some vague sort of sense to myself. Then, I can sleep at night. Just kidding, because of the demons. 

I'm going to awkwardly end this ~review~ with a pic of Alex reaching out to touch Nica's neck

I was all like "lol, Is he going to strangle her?" 

Because I'm the worst and can't watch movies in a proper way. Like, in a normal human being sort of way. Oh well. If he would have strangled her he could have pretended none of this ever happened. What a dummy. 

#NVR4GT