The Loneliest Planet

Julia Loktev's The Loneliest Planet is an incredibly subtle piece of filmmaking. At times, too subtle for its own good, but, for the most part it works. Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg play a young couple who are traveling through an area of the world that used to be part of the Eastern Bloc countries. They hire a guide to lead them across the wilderness, and, like life, on a long enough time line, things go wrong, and test their relationship to its limits.

The Loneliest Planet is beautifully shot, though some of those shots, specifically the extremely wide ones of the characters walking across vast expanses, seem like filler. The acting is first rate. I never had a moment where I didn't buy these characters as who they were, and, while it is admirable that Loktev stuck with the reality of trips like that - Lots of hiking, which, after a while can be really boring - It sometimes makes the film a little boring. I had a full range of emotions while watching this film, from intrigued, to sad, to angry, to bored, to amazed. I would say The Loneliest Planet isn't perfect, but it's still pretty amazing.