Day Night Day Night

Julia Loktev
2006

Julia Loktev's impressive debut feature is a homegrown premonition of terror returning to U.S. soil. Luisa Williams stars as a lone woman arriving in New York intending to enact a suicide bombing in Times Square with the help of a faceless, nameless cell. It's ballsy material that could easily have gone disastrously wrong were it not for Loktev's decision to scale down the grand sociopolitical implications in order to focus intently on the play-by-play action of the lead's experiences, and by extension her murky intentions. The adherence to ambiguity is a bit rich at times with the terrorist organization presented as decidedly unaffiliated even though the clothing, methods, and rhetoric all scream Islamic Fundamentalism. The director's decision not to label the cell is understandable, but in certain scenes this adamant coyness is stretched so thin as to be disingenuous (the almost comic backdrops used in the remarkable videotaping scene comes strongest to mind). Alongside that there's some corny pop psychology thrown in as well with the girl's obsessive impulse to bathe and groom herself before the big act. That said, there's plenty to like here with intimate camera work and the sense that Loktev can convey a tremendous amount with minimal exposition and a tiny budget.