The isolated life on an islander

Eighteen-year-old Arsa lives alone on a sparsely populated island off the coast of Sicily. Arsa’s independence anchors a story about a young woman whose attention seems to have drifted away from the outside world.

   Directed by a pair of visual artists who go by the name MASBEDO,* the movie depicts the life of a teenager (Gala Zohar Martinucci) who shows little interest in connecting with others. 

   Filmed on the volcanic island of Stromboli, Arsa — named for its main character — moves slowly as Arsa tries to process the death of her father, a sculptor whose creativity was stifled by the commercial interests of his boss.

  Another character, Jacopo Olmo Antinori's Andrea arrives on the island with two other young men. Andrea, who has also lost his father, tries to connect with Arsa; she eventually sleeps with him, but isn’t about to reciprocate his emotional outreach. 

  To support herself, Arsa collects trash that washes onto the island's shores and sells it to a recycler who visits by boat, another aspect of a movie that also shows her relating to the children of tourists.

   I was primed for an “arty” movie, meaning one reliant on richly realized, evocative imagery.  I also wouldn’t have objected to a story that did more to explore Arsa’s life, some of which is revealed in flashbacks. In other words, the movie would have benefited from more poetry or from a more conventional narrative. Instead, it resides in the unsatisfying middle, where neither feels fully realized.

 In the end, Arsa’s concerns seem abstract and, alas, remote. I welcome movies that don't pound us with plot points, but Arsa becomes lethargic and, alas, dull. Oddly, the movie can seem as isolated from its audience as its main character is from the rest of humanity.

*For the record: Nicolo Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni are the duo known as MASBEDO, an eclectic effort known for installations, performance art, sound design, and film.