Locarno 2026: Objet A, Tear Gas, Fire Flower visuals

In my recent viewing experience at Locarno, I encountered a trio of films that felt less like conventional cinema and more like deep dives into the messy, often contradictory landscape of the human condition. They are deliberately elusive, pushing the audience to question what they are watching while exploring weighty subjects: sensuality, war, and disaster. These works employ visual and sonic approaches that are challenging, sometimes difficult to grasp, but ultimately unforgettable.

One striking entry was Ann Oren’s exploration of the body and desire, particularly in her film Objet A. Following her earlier playful work, this latest film delves into a strange world where fame is forged by biology itself. It centers on two married surgeons who have achieved notoriety by utilizing fungi to generate skin. Their daily routine—preparing breakfast, engaging in physical routines, and performing intricate hand surgeries—is juxtaposed with the disarray caused by a sudden complication: the introduction of a new person into their lives fractures their relationship, revealing the subtle yet profound distances between their physical attraction.

Oren masterfully uses the sensory experience to explore desire, suggesting that sensual pleasure is found not through traditional acts, but through touch, smell, and feeling. As her characters navigate this evolving dynamic, the film culminates in a fever dream sequence that dissolves boundaries, leaving the viewer immersed in an overwhelming, indelible vision of human impulse.

In stark contrast to Oren’s interior explorations of desire, Uta Beria’s Tear Gas delivers a fiercely political and kinetic experience. This harrowing coming-of-age narrative unfolds against the backdrop of upheaval in Georgia, following Alvo, his daughter Elene, and his mother Dali as their world teeters on the brink of change. Elene navigates the complex emotional terrain of her family while observing the wider societal crackdowns on civil disobedience. Beria captures the frantic energy of protest with remarkable spontaneity, filming inside actual demonstrations where tear gas smoke and sirens invade the frame, perfectly illustrating how multiple generations find different ways to rebel against constraints.

Beria expertly balances this political urgency with deeply personal moments, juxtaposing images of oppression with the defiant search for connection among teenagers. The film achieves a kind of double coming-of-age—one for the individual girl and one for a nation grappling with conflict—underscoring the persistent need to find freedom even amid chaos.

Finally, Anna Vaz’s experimental essayist documentary Fire Flower provides a profound meditation on trauma, memory, and the erosion of truth. Adapting Yoko Hayasuke’s work, this film serves as a reaction to the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima meltdown. Through a stream-of-consciousness narrative interspersed with interviews from Japanese citizens, Vaz examines their anxieties about the toxicity of the environment—the food they eat, the air they breathe, and the ground beneath them.

Vaz utilizes an aesthetic approach that mirrors the fragmentation of society itself. By using asynchronous sound in her interviews and allowing lengthy, meditative shots of sunsets to hold the viewer captive, she forces us to sit with uncomfortable truths about environmental awareness. The film’s structure, which unfolds like a journal separated by dates, echoes the way memory erodes following a disaster. Ultimately, Fire Flower is a challenging cinematic experience that cinematically actualizes fear and vulnerability, leaving the viewer submerged in a dream that often lives as a nightmare.