1,000 Times Good Night (2013)
Certified: 15
Duration: 117 minutes
Directed by: Erik Poppe
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lauryn Canny, Adrianna Cramer Curtis, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Larry Muller Jr, Mads Ousdal
KRS Releasing Ltd
The Irish-Norwegian film 1,000 Times Good Night could easily have fallen into the trap of being another melodramatic outing. However, director Erik Poppe gives the film a universal outlook, striking one visual piece of imagery after another as the picture delivers context and emotion in spades.
Juliette Binoche is Rebecca, a photographer who is obsessed with capturing images of war. The film follows her as she witnesses and takes photos of a female suicide bomber group. This obsession with capturing the moment will place her into a series of cataclysmic events.
At home she is a different person, and is more laid back and serene. Her husband Marcus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is a marine biologist, who believes his wife’s obsession has more to do with the allure of danger than photography. Their teenage daughter Steph (Lauryn Canny) receives some very strong, mixed messages from all this.
When she is given an ultimatum where she has to decide between family and work, Rebecca chooses the former. At one point, however, Steph and Rebecca end up on an assignment in a Kenyan refugee camp.
When trouble ensues, Rebecca gets lost in her work but there is also Steph to contend with.
1,000 Times Good Night seems to light up the screen especially in the way it presents one exotic landscape after another and captures in freeze frame beautiful and evocative imagery. The frozen images become protagonists in themselves, proving to be quite memorable.
The film also delivers a meaningful story, where the audience will find it rewarding to actually try and understand the main characters and their motivations. Cinematographer John Christian Rosenlund seems to have made it his mission to deliver a movie that acts as the perfect bridge between cinematography and photography. It is very evident that Poppe has done his homework well.
The film is intent on studying its subject with minute focus and an eye for detail, whether it is Binoche’s face or a war zone. The director seems to have the theme close to heart as he is drawing from his experience in the 1980s as a field war photographer.
The mix of emotions, family problems, war-torn landscapes and inner conundrums are all captured with a rare eye for beauty that makes this a very unusual watch.