Review: Everything Will Be OK
by David Katz
- BERLINALE 2022: Rithy Panh’s new documentary is a grandiose vision, told with wooden figurines, where animals have evolved to enslave humans
In sculpture, there is a theory about “surplus matter”: the idea that the statue already lies within the stone, and that the artist’s task isn’t to create the work, but merely to strip away what’s enshrouding it. And so, out of countless blocks of lumber come the intricately designed wooden figurines of Cambodian-French filmmaker Rithy Panh’s work. It’s oddly apt to think of them in sculptural terms: from a simple block of wood, Panh and his technicians have crafted a little universe, a world in miniature deftly summarising the horrors of our own.
After making several essential works on the Cambodian genocide, of which he was a survivor, Panh has turned to more generalised, universal looks at political tyranny and terror, all told through striking visual motifs that send the eye racing in multiple directions across the screen. Irradiated [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rithy Panh
film profile], the first in this mode, was at the 2020 Berlinale, and now we have Everything Will Be OK [+see also:
trailer
interview: Rithy Panh
film profile], premiering at the festival’s first physical edition in two years, also in competition.
It’s a bit of a grand “theory of everything”, this film, and with visual spontaneity being more common in art cinema, it’s also quite refreshing to see something devised with such attention to detail and graphic pizazz. Everything Will Be OK depicts a dystopian world where a charismatic warthog warlord has enslaved humanity, forcing its survivors into slavery like the Egyptian pharaoh or the initial European colonisers of Africa. It’s an animal technocracy: anthropomorphised pigs reign supreme, either doling out authoritarian punishment or lounging around in luxurious caverns dotted with television screens and psychedelically coloured lighting. Carefully alternating from large, panoramic views to tiny insert shots, it’s a vision that rivals high-end Hollywood special effects, and it all came from a few enormous tree trunks (although hopefully not a whole forest).
The archival footage of historical atrocities that Panh uses serves two purposes: initially as a dark joke about these pig-fascists’ viewing preferences, and also to stun the audience into a kind of submission; reflecting, in maybe a blunt and overly broad sense, on 20th-century humanity’s propensity for horror, and how if it happened on such a scale before, why it could indeed return. The biggest invocation of present crisis, rather than state aggression, comes from the pandemic: human figurines, their mouths covered by medical masks, being led away and tied up point towards this ambiguously – for this reviewer, it doesn’t refer to anti-lockdown sentiment so much as a generalised claustrophobia and despair. A monotonous voice-over, read by French actress Rebecca Marder, sonorously enfolds the action, spouting doom-laden Godardian riddles – “Revolution is truth turned into an act of terrorism” – that never harmonise meaningfully with the visuals.
But by the end, everything somehow is OK, with the animal dictatorship seemingly having been vanquished; here, the film poignantly references Panh’s experience in Cambodia, where the leafy set backdrops, now devoid of the regime and finally rife with green space, offer the possibility for renewal, reflection and escape.
Everything Will Be OK is a co-production between Hong Kong and France, staged by CDP - Catherine Dussart Productions. Playtime oversees its international sales.
Photogallery 11/02/2022: Berlinale 2022 - Everything Will Be OK
5 pictures available. Swipe left or right to see them all.
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
