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The painter Apolonia Sokol is the apparent subject of a wide-ranging documentary about herself.
By Alissa Wilkinson
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“For as long as I can remember, I’ve seen the world through my camera,” a woman’s voice says in the early moments of “Apolonia, Apolonia.” Onscreen, we’re watching — presumably through that same camera — a young woman, strong features, entrancing smile, dark circles under her eyes, bearing the expression of a person who’s not afraid of the lens one bit. “But no motif,” the voice continues, “has caught my eye as she did.”
The face belongs to Apolonia Sokol, but the voice belongs to Lea Glob, the filmmaker who followed Sokol on and off for thirteen years. The two men met in 2009 and Glob, who is Danish (and more commonly speaks Danish in the film). , made the decision to make Sokol the subject of a film school assignment: to create a documentary portrait of a person. She, he tells us, was fascinated by Sokol’s life. He grew up in a theater in Paris and then in Denmark after his parents separated. After enduring a life-threatening illness as a teenager, Sokol returned to Paris at the age of 18 with the aspiration to “follow in the footsteps of the wonderful painters. “At that time, the theatre (which his father directed) was a bit like a theatre. This globality took hold of Glob and he didn’t need to let go.
The documentarian’s age-old question: who is the subject of a non-fiction film?is a main theme that runs through “Apollonia, Apollonia”. Glob speaks of entering the “magic theater” in which Sokol “played the leading role,” but even as the performer ages, the theater closes its doors, and life changes drastically, Glob remains with him. Whether I photographed Apollonia with my camera or whether she photographed me with her theater, I don’t know,” he says. Glob’s approach is observation, with no end or specific point in mind, to the point of excess. He even admits, at the end of the film, that he didn’t know when to turn off the camera, a question that worries many observational documentarians, as well as most artists and writers. Every time Glob thought the film might end, Sokol’s life changed again: he moved to New York, Los Angeles, collaborations with artists and entrepreneurs. Each time, Glob returned to filming.
This is not the kind of documentary meant to introduce you to the life of the painter Apolonia Sokol. Unless you’re immersed in the art world, you probably won’t even know who he is. Rather, it’s a film about life and how it’s lived, and Sokol’s portrait forms a pleasing concord rather than a narrative backbone. The film moves forward more or less in time, but jumps back and forth, as if Glob, to make sense of the offer, is remembering anything he’s seen for a while. a long time ago. It’s simple to reshape an artist’s life as a narrative of inevitability, yet Sokol paints without being sure that he will one day make it to the mainstream art world. We practice their exhausting uncertainty through the eyes of someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing either. The purpose here is not to document the rise of a star, but to practice the artistic process.
That fact alone sets “Apolonia, Apolonia” apart from the avalanche of approved thematic documentaries that have flooded the market and film festivals in recent years. These films are hagiographic, but not necessarily. The target audience is enthusiasts of the featured topic, or those who want to stand out. As a result, those films have a built-in audience, providing them with a healthy budget. These are safe investments for sponsors and streamers, and the ecosystem is built for them, but they will offer few surprises.
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