8 Views of Lake Biwa — Marko Raat [IFFR ’24 Review]

Imagine Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter — a devastating, years-long descent of a small town in the aftermath of a communal tragedy that traces grief and guilt across several characters — if it were weirder, Estonian, and inspired by the Japanese art tradition of “eight views.” If you can’t imagine that, don’t worry, you’re normal. If you can, you’ll love 8 Views of Lake Biwa. Most Westerners, including the Baltic home audience for Marko Raat’s film, will have little if any pre-knowledge of this East Asian art tradition. Imported to Japan via China, the label describes paintings depicting eight perspectives of one locale, which are predetermined and include things like the returning sails at Yabase and the evening snow at Hira, in search of something like an essence of the place. As the title suggests, Lake Biwa of Shiga Prefecture, the largest freshwater lake in Japan, has taken on such a special position that it’s sometimes referred to as the “eight views of Lake Biwa, ” and this appears to be their first prominent cinematic translation.

But that title is a bit misleading because the lake in Raat’s film is not Biwa but Lake Peipsi, the massive body of water located between Estonia and Russia. An isolated remnant of Orthodox Russians who fled 17th-century homeland oppression now hold the role of custodian over the lake and make due as a fishing community. Occasionally, modern geopolitics slips in to intrude upon the fairytale luster, such as with the mandated military service of a young man; though, for the most part, the village carries on with a lifestyle that could be lived in either the 17th or 21st centuries. Much like Egoyan’s quintessentially Canadian The Sweet Hereafter, the social bonds of the community become manipulated and perverted in the face of a shared tragedy. And also like Egoyan’s film, the central tragedy concerns the unexpected death of several teenagers after an accident involving the town’s central body of water. Only Hanake (Elina Masing) and one of the adults on the boat survive.

Continue reading at In Review Online.