Woman and the Glacier

Lithuanian director Audrius Stonys’s artful documentary prioritizes intriguing visual imagery over conventional voiceover and intertitles. In the Tian Shan mountain range straddling Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Xinjiang in northwest China, Stonys captures the rhythms of life in a harsh environment as ruddy-faced climatologist Ausra Revutaite goes about her daily routine in the absence of human companionship, something she has done for 30 years. She climbs rocks, stockpiles potatoes, takes measurements of various kinds, records data in notebooks, and naps at her desk. The terrain that surrounds her Soviet-era structure is rocky, barren, and isolated, but she is accompanied by a black dog and a gray cat (when they aren't wandering the grounds alone, the two animals tear into each other in a way that seems rather vicious). With few exceptions, this is a quiet film that emphasizes natural sounds, such as wind, footsteps on gravel, and the dripping of melting ice (a wistful, minor-key score adds to the contemplative mood). Sometimes the filmmaker leaves his human subject behind to explore the ice-crystal-encrusted caves and other features of the area (as the temperature rises, the ice cracks and water flows down the mountains). From time to time, he also cuts away to a white-haired man in a black appliquéd jacket playing a mandolin-shaped instrument. Towards the end of the film, Revutaite departs—presumably for good—and two loud tourists arrive to stomp around and take photographs. It's clear that an era has come to an end in this film that plays more like a tone poem than a conventional documentary. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)