The Calming (2020) - Song Fang

While perhaps too insular or withholding for its own good, Song Fang's The Calming remains a meditative study of self.  Unwilling to associate solitude or self-reflexive personal stasis as a de factor pejorative, The Calming instead offers a far more complex character piece, one in which affect - both positive and negative - is perceived not through a binary way of thinking but as a synthesis of the spirit or soul which is largely incalculable, unquantifiable, and fleeting,  Through the film's largely plotless construction which is more predicated on a simple conceit than a formal narrative story structure, The Calming excavates the spiritual significance of self-reflection and solitude, showing how happiness or at least being content in life must first-and-foremost come from within.  External relationships are often what send this character into a place of grief or uncertainty and yet in solitude - often which also takes place in the natural world - she eventually begins to find a sense of calm, an inner peace from the chaotic nature of modernity and the normalized notions of life which often can create unfair pressures on an individual whose life hasn't congealed with the typical path.  While many films detail with loneliness, The Calming simultaneously finds utility and subverts the aesthetics in cinema often used to elicit such emotions, using them instead to touch on the importance of self-reflection and recognition that through pain and introspection often comes peace.