What Is This Film Called Love

Mark Cousins, whose project The Story of Film: An Odyssey is being presented at this year’s Karlovy Vary festival in the section Out of the Past, decided to make a poetic documentary examining the essence of happiness. Filmed in Mexico over three days with a budget of only £10, this playful and intimate ode to freedom of movement, creativity and trust in one’s own instincts, is distinctive for its special connection with the experiences and ideas of Sergei Eisenstein and the work of Chris Marker and Virginia Woolf. In this stirring essay on the themes of memory, landscape and the joy of hiking, viewers will not only be treated to three visual dream sequences but also music by PJ Harvey, Simon Fisher Turner, Johnny Cash and Bernard Hermann. In his typical, genuine and intuitive manner, Cousins asks where joy comes from. His wholly independent, by turns spirited and gloomy film explores the sentiments associated with travel and homecoming, and the nature of solitude. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)