Can a film be clinical and informative and yet also dreamy and mysterious? Of course, and a lot more besides. That much is apparent from the beautiful Battles, an observational essay that investigates the traces recent conflicts have left in the landscape and the people at four different sites in Europe. The echoes of war also reverberate in peacetime. Battles takes a patient look, sensitive to tragedy and comedy, at the traces of battle in the landscape. A bunker in Albania used as a cattle stall by a family. Older ammunition that is exploded by the Belgian army. An army of Russian seamstresses who fabricate inflatable war material. And a tourist attraction in Latvia where people can pay to spend time in a military training camp. Traces of battle that find a place in everyday life, while also describing something of the absurd relationships between the two. This debut by Flemish director Isabelle Tollenaere takes us to a twilight world where present and past, war and play, threat and innocence come together, and observes all this with as much tranquillity as eye for detail. Against these decors, ghosts from the past appear naturally, but they don’t know the way either.
