Onlookers Review – Snapshots of a Southeast Asian Country Shaped by Tourism.

Shot in Laos, Kimi Takesue’s unique documentary observes scenes and landscapes that would not be out of place on tourist brochures. Restrained in its camera movements, the film looks at glimmering golden temples, falls tumbling down silver rocks, and processions of monks moving through lush landscapes. It also reveals what is absent from glossy brochures, namely the presence of tourists.

The disruption to the everyday pace of locals is at once visual and aural: we see throngs of wandering visitors, their casual clothes of shorts and T-shirts a sharp juxtaposition to the ancient architecture. Their occasionally rowdy leisure activities are interspersed with more ordinary instances from the daily routines of residents, like schoolchildren heading to class or women presenting offerings to monks by the roadside.

A Sense of Tension Between the Fixed Lens and Motion

There’s a sense of tension between the unmoving shot and the actions that unfold inside the frame. Shots of tourists being loaded on to buses evoke Jacques Tati’s 1967 classic Playtime, which gently pokes fun at the idea of an authentic cultural experience achieved through consumerist means. The point of view in Takesue’s film, however, is on shakier grounds.

Some of the visual juxtapositions veer towards reiterating overused dichotomies between the east and west, the local and international. For instance, most of the tourists seen in Onlookers are Caucasian; actually, visitors to Laos largely come from neighbouring Asian countries. Likewise, the Laotian population is also far from homogeneous: one scene shows middle-aged men playing a game of catch, with a caption telling us they are “arguing in Lao” – yet some of them are using Vietnamese language.

The film does raise some interesting questions about the connection between tourism and cinema, even if it has few novel or profound insight into both subjects.

Onlookers is streaming via True Story from 5 December.