Living in limbo on an empty street in city of ghosts.
22ND OF MAY begins with a one take shot of our hero getting ready to go to work. The camera bobs and weaves around him as he stalks around his small single occupancy apartment. The statement is that we are in the hands of a talented film maker. Typically the one take is used to show off, here is it deployed subtly and hardly noticed until a few minutes later. By then the audience understands the director is in complete control, he bends the cinematic universe around his singular vision.
The film focuses on the aftermath of a suicide bombing of a crowded shopping mall. After a sudden blast of physical damage we explore the psychic and emotional trauma that it caused. First we see the impact it has on security guard Sam. After surviving initially his mind breaks and he flees the scene of the attack. People who died in the blast come to Sam like strange ghosts from a Charles Dickens play. Some of the ghosts are angry with Sam, others forgive him. If I have any criticism of the film it's that there's too many of these ghosts. Three ghosts worked for Dickens, why not here too?
Besides this minor complaint I really liked the movie. It's completely disjointed and ambiguous, a very arty art-house approach to some heavily existential material. After watching the director's previous movie, the gutterpunk freak out EX DRUMMER, I didn't know what to expect here. 22ND OF MAY is concussive film making, the ringing in your brain will last for a long time.
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