Mariner of the Mountains
Karim Aïnouz turns to Algeria, the land of his father, for a deeply personal and remarkably adventurous and ambitious documentary.
This is not the first film that I have seen by Karim Aïnouz but I was quite unprepared for the sheer originality which, for a documentary, is remarkably adventurous and ambitious. Fascinating as it is, Mariner of the Mountains can also be exasperating, but its achievements will nevertheless linger in the mind. What we have is a kind of essay film which is all about the man who made it. The main words that we hear and which he speaks on the soundtrack come in the form of an imaginary letter to his late mother. We may never see Aïnouz but from the start we are travelling with him. At the outset he approaches Algiers by sea on a ferry from Marseille and thereafter travels on to reach the mountainous region of Kabylia and the village of Tagmut Azuz where his father was born.
Having grown up with his mother, Aïnouz at the age of fifty-four is visiting his father's country for the first time. His parents had met in the 1960s when his father, Majid, was in America but before long the latter had been drawn back to Algeria over deep concerns regarding its war for independence from France. Karim’s Brazilian mother, who was pregnant when Majid left, would never see him again and Karim did not meet his father until he was eighteen. Indeed, having gone on to remarry, Majid would continue to remain a remote figure in Karim’s life. Nevertheless, in building up a life as a filmmaker and living at various times in both the USA and in Berlin, the son remained acutely aware of the totally different life he might have had if, like the other members of his father’s family, he had grown up in Tagmut Azuz. In travelling there on his own he was exploring what his Algerian blood meant to him and whether or not this country was in any sense his home. There’s a telling scene in which it transpires that, however unfamiliar Algiers is, it is the one place where when he gives his name nobody asks how to spell it.
Mariner of the Mountains is a film in which the history of Karim Aïnouz’s parents emerges in some detail both through the words spoken and through images from the past. Memory here feels almost Proustian and yet to a great extent what is evoked is the idea of the life that he might have lived but didn’t. The first half of the film is largely centred on Algiers itself. Here the keenly observant Aïnouz captures the character of the place and of the people too, whether old or young, while also conveying both his sense of connection with the city and his realisation that he nevertheless feels a stranger there. This is wonderfully caught, but the film’s attempt to put us inside Aïnouz’s head does involve several examples of very fast montage shots which seem mannered and off-putting, flashbacks that flash distractingly and tiresomely.
The second half of the film makes Tagmut Azuz its chief location and here Aïnouz does fit in to the extent that he is welcomed by family members still living there (he even encounters one man who bears his own name and was born in the same year). Nevertheless, whatever the attractions, the life-style there is restricted and so remote from his own experiences that it remains in every sense a distant world. Again, the atmosphere is very well caught - the filmmaker’s eye is keen and personal - but the extent of the footage included can at times seem rather indulgent. It's also the case that the political history that increasingly finds a place here - essentially that of Algeria but with references to Brazil as well - is touched on in ways that turn the film into something closer to a philosophical and intellectual work without quite finding a true focus in the process. For me the personal aspects of the film remain by far the strongest and provide the most original and memorable elements while the concluding scenes have less impact. Others may respond differently and, however uneven and however challenging at times, there is much here of genuine distinction.
Original title: O Marinheiro das Montanhas.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Dir Karim Aïnouz, Pro Walter Salles, João Moreira Salles and Maria Carlota Fernandes Bruno, Screenplay Karim Aïnouz and Murilo Hauser Ph Karim Aïnouz and Juan Sarmientog G., Ed Ricardo Saraiva, Music Benedikt Schiefer.
Video Filmes/Watchmen Productions-Mubi.
98 mins. Brazil/France/Germany/Algeria. 2021. UK and USA Rel: 23 May 2022. No Cert.