Jul 17

Jul 17 North Bend Film Festival movie review: 'Ayar'

*(Image courtesy the North Bend Film Festival)*

The indie experimental drama 'Ayar' (screening during the 2021 North Bend Film Festival) defies storytelling conventions in this snapshot of life in the Land of Opportunity amid a life-disrupting pandemic.

In short: Unemployed actress and singer Ayar (Ariana Ron Pedrique) moves back to Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic, as she tries to find work and reconnect with the estranged young daughter.

The scaffolding of this film is pretty simple: a failed singer leaves everything behind to re-enter her daughter's life - a little girl Ayar barely knows. But for a movie that has a pretty straightforward through line, 'Ayar' is deceptively simple on its surface and doesn't easily fall into any one bucket. And about halfway through the runtime, 'Ayar' deliberately steps from indie film festival narrative about immigrants living in America - and enters the realm of experimental film.

There's a meme that floats around social media that simply goes "Imagine one day you're at work or out for a drink or doing the shopping and someone shouts 'CUT' and it turns out you were Gary Oldman all along." This intriguing film is rooted in the narcissistic ideation that anyone is unknowingly just a character - the star of some movie, played by some actor, for the entertainment or amusement of some unseen audience. That all the drama is just part of a story. All the characters are played actors.

As the protagonist grapples the choices she's made in her young life, 'Ayar' takes an intentionally sharp turn that doesn't just break the fourth wall - it obliterates the divide between actor and audience. On the surface layer is the story of Ayar's failures as an entertaining and as a mother - on another level, 'Ayar' is quite transparent in showing the audience the film's intent. Playwright Bertolt Brecht pioneered the concept of upending any suspension of realism. Instead of trying to convince the audience of some artificial/fictional reality, the narrative's inherent falseness is highlighted when the fourth wall is shown for the façade it is.

The film's bold choice pull back the curtain is effective ... and distracting. Revealing the inner workings of the film - specifically the real-life events that inspired the film - allows the audience to better understand the personal aspects of the script. It literally allows the actors to connect their real-life experiences to Ayar and her journey. Unfortunately, this amounts to little more than an unconventional form of exposition. What's worse than "telling" rather than "showing" - having the main actors tell the audience their inner feelings and thoughts, which directly relate to Ayar's character arch. This might work as a post-film Q&A, but is disruptive as a mid-film element. Every narrative ever is essentially a manipulation of the audience to some degree - the best films don't leave the audience feeling totally exploited.

Final verdict: This Brechtian distanciation is a double-edged sword for 'Ayar' - it allows the audience to more clearly see the film's theme of regret and lost opportunities, but at the cost of revealing a clunky attempt to patently manipulate the audience.