Still from The Challenge (2016), directed by Yuri Ancarani (all images courtesy Atopic Films, Dugong Production, La Bête, Ring Film)
Yuri Ancarani’s documentary The Challenge immerses viewers in the dazzling subculture of ultra-wealthy sheikhs who practice falconry.
Close to 100 falcons swarm in a gargantuan, high-ceilinged warehouse. Two men wearing thawbs (the traditional Arab garb consisting of a white headpiece and robe) slowly walk the perimeters of the room, spreading seed for the hungry birds. The score (from Lorenzo Senni and Francesco Fantini) uses woodwind, synthesiser, and xylophone in a manner cheekily reminiscent of the swelling, dramatic strings in the scores of film composer Bernard Herrmann, a frequent collaborator of Albert Hitchcock who served as sound consultant on The Birds. As more food hits the ground, many of the falcons land until only a few flutter around the emptying indoor airspace. The scene stretches over three minutes of wordless action, men feeding and falcons being fed.
This pure cinema — the reliance on juxtaposed moving images and little else to convey meaning — is typical of Italian director Yuri Ancarani’s documentary The Challenge, screening this week at the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center as a part of the annual New Directors/New Films series. Composed primarily of long, contemplative shots, the film waits 18 minutes into its 70-minute run time to introduce dialogue. Even when the characters — wealthy Qatari sheikhs obsessed with practising falconry — do speak, the dialogue is not always of much consequence to the plot, typically an observation or an aside between two individuals. Read more...