Programmer's Note

The Loneliest Planet is the third feature from Julia Loktev, and it fulfills all the promise of her previous films. Her camera captures stunning scenery and an intimate story in languorous real time, asking the viewer to let go of expectations and let nature — and human nature — take its course.

Alex (Gael García Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) are young, in love and engaged to be married. We meet them in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, where they embark on a pre-marital hiking trip. They hire a local guide, Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), and trek into the wilderness. The vast landscape has a craggy beauty, as well as an odd sense of foreboding to which the young couple initially seems immune.

Walking for hours on end, the travellers occasionally talk, sing or play word games, but more often they allow their surroundings to envelop them in silence. We come to know this couple and the full spectrum of their relationship through nuance and detail, subtle negotiation and exhilarating physicality. Then something occurs: a gesture almost missed, a moment that can’t be undone but changes everything. This single instance rocks the foundation of Alex and Nica’s relationship, and challenges everything they believed about each other.

All the while Dato is nearby, a witness to everything that occurs. As their travels continue, Dato’s presence becomes more important. Alex and Nica alternatively turn to him when they are not comfortable being with each other.

Loktev masterfully merges the strength of her actors with the power of her setting. Furstenberg and Bernal have a unique chemistry, while Gujabidze, a first-time actor and full-time mountain guide in real life, gives a memorable performance as an escort through terrain that is both literally and figuratively rugged. At its core, The Loneliest Planet is a love story rendered in a most unique way, and as much about betrayal and forgiveness as the certainties and ambiguities of the human heart.