This is a work of cinema art.  However, art does not have the same impact on all audiences.  For those whose sensibility leads them to stay in the sensing present, appreciating what is up there on the screen, this film could be a rewarding contemplation of characters speaking their minds and their lives.

For those of a more intuitive sensibility, whose attention is less immediately focused, this could be an ordeal, requiring a fixed patience that may not seem justified.

Acknowledgement must be given to the director’s skill in working for 15months with minimal artifice, digital camera and a series of very long takes with fixed camera.  An old man whose wife leaves him wanders his neighbourhood talking but mainly listening to the problems of a group of people he sees as his children.

This could work well as theatre where the live actor is the centre of attention rather than cinema where one is too conscious of performance.  It is also the stuff of radio drama where the imagination creates the person as one listens.  At worst this is like being in public transport, forced to listen to loud one-sided mobile phone conversations that intrude and one can’t escape from.

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