The Irresistible Allure of Discovery
A review of the feature-length documentary Path, directed by Firouz FarmanFarmaian
The feature-length documentary Path takes a central, significant idea from its very first scenes and expands and develops it. Over the course of its journey, it seeks to display the various facets of this idea, explore its potentials, and ultimately bring it to a precise conclusion. The film’s idea is, in essence, the connection between the cultural exploration of peoples and the ethical dimension of living in the present day: the removal of the boundary between history and the present, and the demonstration of how national customs can unite people from other nations. This central idea concerns how someone who is essentially a stranger can strive to promote the customs of a land—that is, going beyond the meaning of borders, language, ethnicity, and nationality. It means returning to the principle that defines human being beside human being: heir to the earth, not owner of a geographical territory; master of all civilization, all culture, and all customs left by ancestors, not merely the inheritor of blood relatives. The film places at its center this brilliant idea that a human being, freed from the grip of whatever limits them, can seek connection with others rather than emphasize differences. That an individual can find meaning by being part of a collective while still preserving their individuality and not losing their role as a person with distinct spiritual, intellectual, and physical characteristics—yet, through collective work, reach the height of their humanity. Throughout the documentary we repeatedly see scenes in which Firouz FarmanFarmaian shares meals—lunch or dinner—with various people. These scenes are not accidental. The reason for their presence is to underscore a vital point: that in this simple act, which humans have preserved for thousands of years, in this very act of eating with others, one can trace the imprint of that existential authenticity.
Let us begin right here—with the fact that throughout the film Firouz FarmanFarmaian seeks alternatives to language. The filmmaker is in search of substitute languages: languages other than English, French, and the like that can bring us closer to one another more directly. No creature on Earth sits together in groups and eats simultaneously the way humans do. From roughly 1.8 million years ago, when humans learned to cook with fire, eating ceased to be merely a physical act of survival; it became a reinforcer of social bonds, trust, and solidarity among people. The reason that, even after two million years, humans still repeat certain ancient habits in the form of parties, ritual banquets, and celebrations is precisely this: eating with others increases the sense of belonging, joy, and even individual health, and ultimately functions as a language. Firouz’s insistence on retaining these sequences in the film stems from this. The length of such scenes, in which the filmmaker converses with people, is simultaneously an attempt to think through the idea of an alternative language and a way for us, as audience, to confront the complexity of the film’s subject.
Another effort to find substitutes for language is the director’s familiarization with cultural and traditional signs. In annual occasions, in the design, color, and texture of fabrics and clothing ornaments, in jewelry and hairstyles, in local music and instruments, in handicrafts, carpets, pottery, and vernacular architecture, and in many other aspects, one can find signs for connecting to the worlds of others—for becoming acquainted with unfamiliar worlds. In fact, the subject of launching Kyrgyzstan’s first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale serves as a starting point for arriving at these linguistic substitutes that introduce the audience to lesser-known worlds. Along this path, the director himself is our guide.
In its large-scale map, the film is an extensive journey—a long voyage that begins from a point of departure, from an idea, and reaches a place where that idea takes practical form, is executed, and becomes concrete. It is, in truth, a journey from mind to reality, from interior to exterior, from idea to execution, from home to the world, from the individual to the collective. Within this long journey there are also moments of smaller spatial journeys: from one city to another, from one car to another, on roads and in airports, on highways and in neighborhoods, and so on. We therefore notice that, beyond the great spiritual journey the film undertakes in its layers of meaning, the director is constantly traveling. The reason for showing these spatial journeys may be that the physical and arduous aspect of travel has also been taken into account—that is, both the meaningful, spiritual, and inward journey is placed before us (which can represent the positive aspects of travel) and the hardships of physical displacement and moving from one country to another (the hard and bodily aspects of travel). In between, the film also contains smaller journeys that are sometimes presented to us as oral narratives—among them the account of a journey that Axel (or, as he introduces himself, Narayana) recounts about his long path from Turkey to Iran, then Pakistan, and finally India. Whether in the spiritual dimension or the spatial one, the film points to the path: the path that an individual travels, inwardly and outwardly, in order to reach the desired outcome.
Although the film employs the performative documentary mode and at times places the filmmaker’s personal experience, feelings, and subjective viewpoint at the center, it also occasionally approaches the participatory documentary model, with Firouz FarmanFarmaian conducting a kind of interview with various people. Path is a character-driven documentary whose main focus is the director himself, and whose story advances through the journeys mentioned, the challenges he faces on this journey, the transformations he witnesses in the pursuit of his aims, and his daily life. The documentary’s structure is such that it most often uses an observational style: the camera follows the subject without much intervention, and many of these scenes appear to have been recorded without prior arrangement (a sign of which is that the camera sometimes loses track of the character or adjusts focus). Yet certain participatory elements (including through interview or the narrator’s voice, which is not identical with the filmmaker’s voice) also come to the film’s aid. One cannot say that Path is a purely portrait documentary, because despite having a central character it concentrates more on his idea, on execution, on themes, and on meanings than on developing the director’s character in front of the camera; nevertheless, it can be said that it uses the effective features of portrait documentaries at the right moments and to the right degree. In fact, the outstanding formal characteristic of Path is precisely this refusal to remain confined to styles and subgenres—this going beyond stylistic molds, this liberation from fixed forms.
With the same central idea—the connection of the person with the past—Firouz FarmanFarmaian works throughout the entire film, cultivates it, expands it, and at the end we realize that the goal was not necessarily reaching a destination; rather, the goal was understanding the meaning of the entire process through the journey itself. It is through the journey itself and the traveling of the path that the person, like a pilgrim, strives along the way toward a meaning, toward a truth. And that truth, in the case of this film, is the connection of the person with those who came before, with the art and civilization of the past, and through this connection the linking with other human beings. In fact, at the end of the path there lies a human and ethical need: becoming one with others. The film’s ending, in that remarkable sequence in Venice, is a sign of the importance of this collaboration with others, of collective work, of the path of creativity that becomes possible through the presence of others. The film’s view of art is, in reality, a reference to the influence of other people on the process of creative work.
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