Film Review: PETROL: A Thought-Provoking and Ambiguous Tale of Imagination [Locarno 2022]

Petrol Review

Petrol (2022) Film Review from the 75th Annual Locarno Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Alena Lodkina and starring Nathalie Morris, Hannah Lynch, Daniel Frederiksen, Natalia Novikova, Alex Menglet, Ganda Marpaung and Intan Kieflie.

There’s not a lot that one can learn in film school if one doesn’t already have the talent to create a unique story in one’s mind. The central character in Alena Lodkina’s new film, Petrol, is a film student who seemingly questions herself time and time again but finds comfort in a relationship with a new person in her life. This picture is fascinating to watch but only offers audiences what they bring to the movie with them in terms of their own imaginations.

This picture opens on a beach with a female film student named Eva (Nathalie Morris) who is listening to the sounds around her while over in the other direction, a performance artist named Mia (Hannah Lynch) appears to be doing something very creative with what appears to be her boyfriend. Eva is a very unique person who is naive and maybe a bit too young to be taking on studies which she may not exactly be ready for.

A colleague of Eva tells her that he just saw the movie Catch Me If You Can. Leonardo DiCaprio starred in that film about a man who duped people into believing he was all sorts of different people. DiCaprio is referenced in the conversation in Petrol. The conversation includes a reference to Titanic. Movie stars and the products they appear in make us believe in alternate realities that do not exist. Maybe I’m being over analytical but there could be a reason Lodkina chose to reference those particular movies and that film star because in Petrol, the character of Eva essentially dupes herself into believing she is a couple of key people in this movie, including her own true self. There, alas, seems to be an alternate reality which Eva creates through her friendship with Mia.

There is a lot of heavy handed symbolism in Petrol. At the same time, there are also mundane discussions about how people can end up choosing security over the pursuit of art and the dialogue reflects everyday conversations very accurately. The symbolism becomes overwhelming at times. Mia tells Eva she has the same name as her dead sister. Then, towards the end more than other places in the movie, the picture becomes quite ambiguous as we’re not quite sure why Mia tends to disappear at times from the action of the movie although Eva certainly pursues learning the answers to questions she probably doesn’t really want to know the answers to. Who is Mia and what is she all about? The answers seem more theoretical than actual at times.

I must admit the film confused me at times and it certainly demands more than one viewing to make a fair and accurate assessment of it but I am confined to the way being a film critic works. You get to view a movie and then you write a review. Still, I liked it. To be honest, when the movie was portraying scenes where the two girls bond, I accepted some of it at face value. This movie is much more deep than that and almost every scene seems to have hidden meanings in retrospect. It’s a film that begs analysis especially in the concluding scenes.

As Mia and Eva begin to change outfits instantaneously (the movie becomes truly supernatural at times) and make their way out to the water while on the beach, the waves Eva ends up floating in seem to become symbolic of the rough road she will have ahead of her in life if she chooses to move forward with her ambitions. But, what a driving force friendship can be to help one move ahead. Mia and Eva are interesting characters who display the need for companionship whether it is real or imagined.

Reese Witherspoon’s character stated in the movie Election that if you want to be great, you have to be lonely. Petrol is sort of about the loneliness we bear when those we care about are not around or, perhaps even more surprising is the suggestion the movie makes that in order to feel fulfillment, we have to enhance our real relationships in our own minds to make them better than they actually are. That way we can move forward with happiness and enjoyment in life.

Petrol is a good film which I will see again. The performances are top notch by our lead actresses. Morris is haunting as the seemingly desperate Eva and Lynch is mesmerizing as she evokes independence and the character’s quest for fulfillment in life. Like good performance art, the movie keeps us watching throughout even if we’re not quite sure all the pieces fit together the right way at the end. In Petrol, the pieces can be assembled however the viewer sees fit. However, Lodkina’s movie deserves another viewing to rearrange the pieces and see different ways of putting the puzzle together as well.

Rating: 7.5/10

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