Tennessine (2023) User Reviews

VERY SLOW BORING FILM

[movieguy3000 · 2/10 · 6 October 2023]

A film that has NO real story, It would like you to believe that it is a story by being pretentious and arty.

Sometimes foreign film-makers think that trying to be poetic will get you across the line.

I really tried to like this film but let me tell you why this is a waste of time and the film only runs for 1 hour 25 min, and about 3 min of reallly slow credits.

The film is shot well, nice locations and the actors are ok, nothing to call home about. The music is delightful too. Apart from that there's nothing else here. The story is non-existent, it's extremely slow paced, boring, uninteresting and no emotion.

Terrible directing of a poorly written script by Amin Palangi & Osama Sami (who I liked very much in Alis wedding) There's some good poetic dialogue but that's not enough.

I don't know what else to say but this is NOT a film, the events of the story go nowhere. There is no conflict, no emotion, no interest, the characters are not interesting, not compelling, not engaging.

Sorry this is the honest truth.

And it has a typical art farty NON-ENDING that leaves you annoyed after thiking something compelling will happen after 1 hour 20 min of nothing - at least give me something.

The fact that I am the only who cared enough to take the time to review the film tells you a lot.

Beautiful, tense and relevant

[ulyssesweb · 10/10 · 9 April 2024]

A wonderfully told depiction of a couple dealing with migration deplacement told with the tense tone of a thriller. Beautiful performances from Osamah Sami and Robert Rabiah with a stunning debut from Faezah Alavi. Expertly crafted by Amin Palangi keeping a slow burning pace that keeps you guessing through Sami's poetic words. The music is intense and smouldering and the cinematography from Daniel Hartley-Allen is a real standout. A film that resonates with anyone that has had to adapt to life in a new country and culture and so wonderful to see such unique and stunning faces amongst a quintessential Australian landscape. Looking forward to seeing this film shine and get all the attention is deserves. One not be missed.

Complex film about space impacting female choice & relationships

[airliedodds · 9 April 2024]

I saw this film in 2024 at The Entertainment Quarter and sat for a Q&A after.

I was struck by the engine of the film and how slowly and unerringly, it knits together an atmospheric, unrelenting and at times psychically penetrative experience of compression and loss for the main protagonist Arash, where his relationship is by turns a touchpoint of deep connection, sexual absolution, tenderness and above all, a corner stone for his own personal poetry and sense of what 'is' and isn't. This is elevated by Palangi to an almost cautionary level as for me the film ratifies through Arash's journey that his idealism is flawed - and separate personal truths exist, often dormant in the body, felt and understood implicitly and often taking the mind a long time succumb to.

Such is Arash's crucible, and the axis in which the films spindles upon. The consolatory glimmer in which the journeys for these two characters pave the way for a deep personal reckoning, as they discover their love to be mimetic of the past. The masonry of Arash's thinking crumbling against the reciprocal and embodied relationship Nazaneen is seeking and pulling towards. For me, as Arash is extricated from his country and the jurisdiction of his family, the Australian landscape protrude upon him to confront silently aching & unanswered questions of what is within him.

We find him confounded and alienated, forced to approach a literal forest of grief and complexity, that agitate him tectonically as the film find its centre. This is bravely and painfully inculcated, and bravely embodied by Nazanin (Faezeh Alavi), and his accompanying appraisal of his relationship with her. The derision she causes within him through her opacity and the slow insinuation of her dishonesty. Alavis' portrayal of kinetic, beseeching and sometimes electrically unbounded femininity, also creates a countering, and very real melancholia I related to as she painfully comes to understands how his plea for traditional love poses to cripple her essence & ever prospecting carnality.

Within the crevasses of this tender and felt relationship lie incendiary and torrent mechanisms of will the other party partially wants to incorporate and cherishes, but partially wants to eviscerate and ignore.

I was left with considerations of the layers of fidelity, and a wider sense of what it means interpersonally as betrayal is felt long before the suggestion of sex in this film, for both parties, and slowly learns to speak itself as the silence and rabidness of the landscape motivates them towards the change they both require. Also the complex interplay between space and female choice; the jurisdiction that holds Arash shackles Nazanin, what she finds in Australia disturbs Arash, what he longs for and keeps him replete and sound in the relationship muzzles and seemingly beleaguers her fluidity and hunger. A film with obvious political and current implications but also gently and silently reaches a more mythic and primitive level about the complexities of relationship, change, and space as means of release. Really enjoyable.