Movie theaters are still shut down — and with them, the power of challenging cinema
LOS ANGELES - One of the finest movies I've seen this year is an exquisitely melancholy German film called "I Was at Home, But ... " That's a title that almost sounds tailor-made for these anxious days of lockdown - a time when many (if not nearly enough) of us are staying home and a trailing-off ellipsis might be the most optimistic way to describe the future.
In fact, the movie, a deeply personal and ruminative work from writer-director Angela Schanelec, was finished months before the COVID-19 pandemic. Cinephiles will recognize the title as a sly riff on "I Was Born, But ...," a 1932 silent classic from the Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu.
"I Was at Home, But ... " isn't silent, but it is something of a quiet enigma - the kind of story that holds its meanings close and is in no hurry to relinquish them. Like Ozu, but at the same time not like him at all, Schanelec takes a family's heartache as her subject, and she invites you to puzzle over her findings along with her. She lets emotion and understanding accrue gradually, and she likes to tease out backstory details rather than announcing them upfront. She knows that few families are quick to give up their secrets, even in the presence of a camera as sensitive and unobtrusive as hers.
The initial reception to "I Was at Home, But ... " followed a familiar enough trajectory for movies of a certain emotionally reserved,
