This Unfamiliar Place (1994, Eva Ilona Brzeski)

This Unfamiliar Place is content in search of presentation. Director Brzeski’s father survived the Nazi attack and occupation of Poland. He never talked about it. Then there’s an unspecified earthquake (maybe the San Francisco-Oakland one of 1989, but it’s sort of immaterial because Brzeski’s not living there at the time). She thinks somehow this place she once lived having an earthquake means she can now understand her father’s experience in Poland.

Her father, who answers unheard interview questions both on camera and in voiceover, doesn’t think she can ever understand. Sadly Brzeski’s wordy, obtuse narration never reflects enough on those statements.

Then there’s a bunch of footage from Poland when Brzeski goes with her father; just people living in Poland in the early nineties. Kids staring at the camera, a cow, all sorts of stuff. It’s like a travelogue with way too much context.

But instead of just ending when it’s only a misfire, Brzeski keeps going–with a lot of that meandering narration–before getting to her father and he’s got so much, both as a visual presence and as a interviewee, well, it becomes clear there’s definitely enough material for This Unfamiliar Place to be something… only Brzeski doesn’t know what. It’s not what she thought it would be, so it’s therefor nothing. Only it’s not nothing.

Brzeski’s technical filmmaking–she directed, edited, photographed–is all good. The short’s not wanting in those regards. Scott Starrett’s music is decent too. Its thesis and the exploration of that thesis… not successful. Way too narrow, way too constrained, way too closed.

1/3 Not Recommended