Directors' Showcase screening - review - LIFE MAY BE by Mark Cousins and Mania Akbari

After a brief encounter in some part of the world, filmmakers Mark Cousins and Mania Akbari decided to keep in touch through a series of correspondence. With Life May Be, they share their personal and deep musings on beauty, nature, the human body, art, cultural differences and so much more with the world.

Despite its use of a simple structure, that after all aims to follow the traditional timeline of correspondence, the general feeling that comes with the film is that this is a truly meditative and enriching experience for anyone willing to take it in along with its experimental approach. That is because despite the fact that there are a lot of personal expressions on subjects, Life May Be is a truly interactive work. It seeks audience interaction not only during the course of its duration but also long after the film is over.

Channelling the works of filmmakers the likes of Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, Cousins and Akbari voice their thoughts and over images they shoot very simply in their homes, in a hotel room or – very importantly – in their travels. Travelling and mobility seems to be the thing that most fuels their inspirations and influence their fascinating outlook on life. More specifically, it is also about exile, with Akbari being an Iranian filmmaker in exile and Cousins experiencing an almost self-imposed exile. One, as a result, as frustrated and fascinated by the world as the other.

The film is constantly pushing boundaries in a casual way. The spirit of Virginia Woolf is a running theme the two share, so much so that Mark tattoos her initials on her arm and Mania amazingly poses in the nude with Woolf’s Orlando written on her body in front of the writer’s old home. All the while, there are constant symbols of romanticism that strengthen a bond between the two directors that speaks of platonic love, or more simply a mutual respect and great reciprocal intellectual infatuation.

Screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, it was revealed that the two had met for the first time since they had met the last time after the screening of the film. Yet, they had never been as close. Because an underlying, important theme that runs throughout the film is modern technology, the very same that allowed them to make the film quite easily and cheaply, but also that allowed them to keep in touch despite constantly being miles and miles away from each other. And, as a final spin, their use of modern technology in an old fashioned sense, by making use of letter prose over instant messaging – another fact that proves Life May Be is a simple film and yet couldn’t be further from being a simple film.