Dis­tant Constellation

The cor­ner of the sky under which the stars of Dis­tant Con­stel­la­tion are dying is Istan­bul, in a retire­ment home dim­ly illu­mi­nat­ed by cold flu­o­res­cent light­ing, flick­er­ing tele­vi­sion sets and fad­ing mem­o­ries. Out­side the win­dows, a mas­sive con­struc­tion project is under­way, though it’s cur­rent­ly noth­ing but a pit, which only some of the film’s sub­jects, sure­ly, will live to see filled in.

Though the two spaces of She­vaun Mizrahi’s doc­u­men­tary are sealed off from one anoth­er, the mul­ti­pronged sym­bol­ism is unmis­tak­able: a lit­er­al­ly con­crete reminder of time’s for­ward-owing relent­less­ness, built by a wax­ing gen­er­a­tion as a wan­ing gen­er­a­tion watches.

Mizrahi’s first film, shot over sev­er­al years as the Amer­i­can film­mak­er vis­it­ed her father’s native Turkey, is about all the big exis­ten­tial stuff, though a fur­ther step back from the void than Fred­er­ick Wiseman’s Near Death or Allan King’s Dying at Grace. It’s pri­mar­i­ly a med­i­ta­tion on mem­o­ry, at the moment when mem­o­ry is all the indi­vid­ual has left.

Mizrahi’s cir­cum­scribed scope gives the film focus and den­si­ty. We nev­er see any care­tak­ers, rel­a­tives or trips out­side, and she allows a few sub­jects to grow into por­traits that give a sense of the full­ness of life, inflamed or blink­ing in and out errat­i­cal­ly – a char­ac­ter­ful vari­ety of emo­tion, which gains grav­i­tas from the way it’s inevitably shad­ed by regret or fearfulness.

One retire­ment home res­i­dent plays piano for Mizrahi and reads to her from his erot­ic mem­oirs: ​“I start­ed to caress her cli­toris. My god! Then she had an orgasm.” Even­tu­al­ly, the wist­ful rogu­ish­ness of this more-dingy-than-dirty old man gives way to sec­ond-child­hood need­i­ness in a sur­pris­ing, some­what inde­cent pro­pos­al to the young female film­mak­er who seems to enjoy lis­ten­ing to him talk.

An old­er sur­vivor of the Armen­ian geno­cide seems to have more men­tal equi­lib­ri­um, despite the croak­ing voice with which she dredges up the sto­ry of her family’s forced con­ver­sion. With her spine curved at an almost 90-degree angle from her waist, she hunch­es into the cam­era – even nod­ding off for a sec­ond mid-sen­tence – and a sin­gle tear forms on her oth­er­wise husk-dry face in frame-fill­ing close-up.

Two old men ride the ele­va­tor up and down the three-storey build­ing all day, philosophis­ing: one short and vol­u­ble, nar­rat­ing and nav­i­gat­ing; the oth­er tall, with a tremor, eager to agree with his friend. They make for a hilar­i­ous and ten­der Mutt and Jeff act, pon­der­ing the mys­ter­ies of the uni­verse (Is there life after death? Do aliens exist?) and resolv­ing them all with a world­ly shrug.

In inter­sti­tial scenes, Mizrahi shows us res­i­dents doing piece­work, puz­zles or sim­ply shuf­fling across the frame with ago­nis­ing slow­ness, until the lights go out for the night and we’re left to con­tem­plate the swirling snow and howl­ing wind. We nev­er see her sub­jects get dressed, let alone attend to any oth­er more inti­mate bod­i­ly needs, though we see how eas­i­ly their skin bruis­es and how long it takes to heal.

Mizrahi films one-on-one inter­views with a shal­low depth of field, so that her sub­jects appear with the occlud­ed inten­si­ty of their own remembrances.