On Norway’s jagged, rocky peninsula, a woman in a simple white dress and sun hat navigates a cobblestone road cut and cracked by the elements over the centuries, lit by rolling ocean waves and dark rolling clouds. This was not the first or last time that she carried around a large muslin bag, and when she reached the edge of the headland she emptied it, scattering what appeared to be thousands of pale mineral fragments over the rocks and into the sea. They rattle around, settle in crevices, ride water, and are released into harsh environments where their location is not immediately obvious. Trillion, Russian-born postdoc Viktor Kosakovsky’s latest fascinating study of land, water, and subsistence classes, is a spectacular panorama, but it doesn’t necessarily contain the whole picture.
Who is this woman? What is she doing? And why? Answers to these fundamental points of intrigue are elusive in “Trillion,” which instead aims to captivate audiences with mesmerizing repetition. For 79 minutes, we watch her trudge along this path, silent and unaccompanied, dragging the same bag from one back to the next. And if there is a Sisyphus-like quality to this difficult, seemingly thankless, and perhaps futile task, it is entirely by design. After all, Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of backbreaking labor for trying to change the order of life and death for the gods on earth. There are first clues as to the meaning behind her mission, but humanity, not any higher power, holds all the cards here.
Those who want to unravel the mysteries of the film at their own pace are advised to read no further. Only in the final title card does the identity of that one person reveal itself. K49814 is the chosen nickname of a German artist who works in the unlikely medium of fish scales. Rather than being pasted onto canvas or formed into sculptures, the delicate nail-like flakes are collected, transported, and returned to the ocean where they came from.
“Trillion” thus follows the final stages of this environmentally-minded project (the title refers to the number of fish humans take from the ocean each year), with the sensuous lyricism and lack of direct commentary one would expect from Kosakovsky’s work. It’s a narrative detail that Hollywood actor and animal rights activist Joaquin Phoenix is credited here as an executive producer, as he did for Kosakowski’s 2020 similarly wordless black-and-white farm sow ode to “Ganda.”
But “Trillion” is a very different kettle of fish (or bag of scales) than that neon-filled festival hit, or Kosakowski’s massive environmental studies “Aquarella” and “Architecton.” Likewise, it’s filled with breathtaking natural scenery and rich charcoal-textured black-and-white lens care by Ganda cinematographers Egil Hashold Larsen and Alexander Dudarev. A dazzling soundscape of wind and water layered with undulating artificial instruments. Larsen’s camera rarely gets close to its subject, sometimes circling her from afar in ever more spectacular widescreen swoops, capturing further signs of life in the process: a lighthouse in the background, a trawler eerily on the horizon.
But despite this formal dynamism, the focus on a single enigmatic protagonist and her ulterior motives gives the film the feel of a stylized slow-cinema experiment, albeit with a direct call-to-action message that subsides as soon as its non-fictional context is revealed. Some viewers will be dissatisfied with “Trillion’s” rigor and economy of information, but adventurous arthouse distributors are likely to emphasize its beauty and puzzle-like nature following a festival run that begins with its IDFA competition premiere.
While some might argue that this short feature would get the point across just as effectively in an even shorter format, there’s something to be said for making it some kind of endurance test. Given the brilliance of its imagery and aural design, it’s hardly painful to watch, but its back-and-forth rhythm is disorienting and aims to make you feel like time even stands still. As such, the work reflects the necessarily painstaking effort behind the artist’s project, highlighting the disparity between how quickly and casually we extract the earth’s resources and how long it takes to restore them to those who go out of their way to do so.
