New York documentary-maker and animal-keeper Jessica Oreck manages a well-attuned act of cultural ventriloquism in this nutritious cine-essay looking east for inspiration. Just as the majestic course of the Danube prompted a search for the roots of western culture in The Ister (2004), here the vastness and darkness of Slavic forests draw Polish-narrated reflections on the nature-culture boundary, interspersed with animated segments from the Baba Yaga fairytale. Dampening the recorded sound on the real-life excerpts (lumberjacks, Soviet-style towerblocks, a wedding) that are used as visual wallpaper, Oreck makes eastern European – or rather, human – life seem otherworldly. Occasionally, this hauntological stream flows too quickly, and the insight gets diluted. At its best, however, the imagery cleanses and reinvigorates the ideas in play: a sequence in a headstone-filled forest seems to touch on the defeat of human agency by nature threatened in the Baba Yaga story, when the sight of a pensioner picking mushrooms amid the graves turns things on their head. There are rich pickings here, with a little effort.
