Wood and Water (Jonas Bak, 2021) (Patreon)

Clocking in at a lean 80 minutes, Wood and Water is one of those films that gets so much right for so long that it's actually a bit nerve-wracking. Is the filmmaker going to make a misstep? First-time feature director Jonas Bak doesn't err, exactly. His film is a stately, poetic examination of self-discovery, the pull of family, and the backdrop of history that tinges our relationships even when we aren't aware of it. But for the first 45 minutes or so, Wood and Water is really something bold and new. It sets up a connection between its subject and its viewer, one that asks us to consider alienation as something more than just a common festival-film trope.

Wood and Water begins with Anke (Anke Bak, the director's mother) completing her final day of work before retirement. She is a church secretary, and as she leaves the church, Bak shows us her exist from the point of view of the crucified Christ, as if bidding one of his children farewell. The first part of the film is largely observational. We see that Anke lives in the Black Forest region, and her adult children come to dine with her to honor the start of her new life as a retiree. One family member is missing, however. Anke's youngest child, Max, has been living in Hong Kong for several years, and he can't make it back to Germany because of the current political unrest.

Anke's daughters disparage Max, arguing that his inability to come home has more to do with selfishness than any mitigating turmoil. As we hear Anke talk with a friend on the phone, nonchalantly telling her that she is sure Max is fine, something strange occurs to us. For the members of this German family, the Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong is less of a political crisis than a familial irritation. This ironic but perfectly natural here-and-elsewhere reaction could very well have been the main theme of Wood and Water. But Bak goes somewhere else.

As Anke prepares to sleep, she sits on the edge of her bed, and at first it looks as if she's praying. But she's actually watching videos on her phone, learning about what's really happening in Hong Kong and what Max's situation might be. Almost immediately afterward, Bak presents us with a tracking shot exiting the Black Forest. Anke has decided to go to Hong Kong herself, to see if Max is okay.

The traveling sequence never really shows Anke. Instead, Bak provides images of pure kineticism: tunnel lights passing over a bus window, or the neon-colored geometry of the city's skyline, with blocky modernist towers creeping across the screen. This short segment is remarkable not only for its objective presentation of urban and cultural dislocation, although Bak's decision to depict contemporary travel as pure movement through ill-defined nonspaces is certainly impressive. Mainly it's jarring that Wood and Water, which initially had the general feel of rigid Berlin School realism, suddenly becomes a kind of Ernie Gehr film, treating cinematic inscription itself into a tool of disorientation, rather than clarification.

Nothing in Wood and Water compares with this bold visual interlude. But if Bak starts out in the stark mode of contemporary German cinema, then takes a detour through the avant-garde, upon arrival in Hong Kong we enter a realm that could be likened to the films of Tsai Ming-liang. It's not just the crush of Asian urbanism that prompts the comparison. Using extreme long shots, impressive aerial photography, and a concern with the city as a space of the vanishing and reappearance of the self, Bak positions Anke as a curious outsider, anxious to find her son without getting lost or wounded in the bargain.

Anke and the Hong Kongers she meets are able to communicate using English. As a senior citizen herself, Anke gravitates toward older HK residents who are willing to help her, and who are concerned for her welfare. (Max's apartment is just a block away from the center of the democracy protests.) The connections she makes are noteworthy because both she and the locals are stranded in an all-pervasive anxiety, although for different reasons. 

Both Baks, mother and son, do a fine job refraining from making this character into a cliche. She's not a world traveler, but she's also no naif, and her demeanor is that of a respectful visitor, pausing to assess situations but exhibiting no real fear. Eventually, Anke becomes subsumed in an almost Antonioni-like labyrinth. She is searching, and does not exactly find what she's looking for. But by attempting to close the distance between herself and her son, it's possible that she's stumbled upon a new chapter in her own life. As her hotel roommate tells her, "your story is just beginning."