“I Know Where I’m Going” begins with a striking handheld closeup of a young woman on hold with her credit card company. Other mundane images follow: her typing, standing at a Xerox machine, shopping for groceries. Your basic portrait of soul-killing urban solitude.
The compositions here are rather painterly for DV, and the young woman (Maria Markosov) has a natural, oddly alluring vulnerability about her. But the filmmakers overplay their hand in so drawing out this series of tableaux. At first it all seems rawtha European, but after about ten minutes of no new information being conveyed, it merely seems tedious.
Then the young woman meets a young man (Eben Bull, also one of the film’s talented DPs). Aha – a story! Their blossoming romance is put across with unaffected performances from both actors, and feels very true. Soon, though, all becomes alienation and disconnection for no good reason – does he get bored of her? She of him? So much is left unsaid that we can’t be sure. Then it’s back to the young woman on her own again, watering her plants, taking out the garbage.
“I Know Where I’m Going” – which borrows its title from a 1945 Powell/Pressburger film – displays no small amount of filmmaking skill, but a bit of humor and a snappier pace wouldn’t have hurt. It has its moments, but it’s a 32-minute film with a 20-minute story.
