Day Night Day Night - Movie - Review - The New York Times

How much of “Day Night Day Night” you choose to remember, however, is another matter. It depends on your tolerance for high- concept stunts. The movie, written and directed by Julia Loktev, may be serious, and it certainly is sure of itself. But it is also maddeningly, purposefully evasive. It wants to imprison you in a terrorist mind-set and play cat-and-mouse games with your hopes and expectations. At moments, it suggests Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant,” but observed from the sole perspective of the shooters in that movie’s Columbine-like massacre.

Yes, Day Night Day Night shares one thing with Elephant and that’s the refusal to explain. School shootings and terrorism share the common storytelling convention that the film must be some kind of psychodrama. My guess is that this is because, whether the psychology is equalizing or differentiating, we need to say something that fits in with some notion of logic and order whether it be to humanize or condemn. Day Night Day Night and Elephant, especially Elephant, not only baffle us by giving us the impulse without explanation, but I think we’re drawn into the moment of pure cinema.