“A supernatural tone poem that movingly depicts the idea that we should not fear death.”

“An ancient tale said, in your first days after death you must enter a house where no words remain. Awaited by a soul and guided by the whole, you wander into the light only to be left behind. Thus the house is never empty and the waiting never ends.”

After amorphic imagery slowly turns into a human face, these words open Kim Allamand and Michael Karrer’s First Days as an instructive message on how to read the poetic and mystical film that is to follow. With the message in the back of our mind, we begin to grasp the at once peaceful and haunting scenes set in unspecified forest land that define the film. A gorgeous and spiritual work, First Days is the first great discovery of the year, a solemn and reassuring interpretation of death and the afterlife that can captivate even those who don’t believe in it.

A woman (Nasheeka Nedsreal), who for clarity we will call Nasheeka from now on, finds her way through a dark forest, torch in hand. Her surroundings may evoke mystery and maybe fear, but the warm glow of the fire leads her way. She reaches a house, seemingly abandoned, a forest hut for weary travelers perhaps. Nasheeka settles in. She bathes, she does some laundry, she changes the flowers in a vase on the kitchen table. Her meals are simple, soup and potatoes with a glass of water, but she seems content and calm.

Then, one night, another woman (Jia-yu Corti, referred to as Jia-yu in the rest of this review) shows up at the door. They eat in silence. In fact, they do everything in silence, even hauling an old cart full of firewood to their lodgings. When Jia-yu wanders off into the forest one day, she finds a mysterious tower that seems to draw her in. Her experience throws a gloom over the harmonious relationship between the two women. When they visit the tower together at night Nasheeka walks into the bright light emanating from inside the structure. Her companion returns to the house alone. She bathes, she does some laundry, she changes the flowers in a vase on the kitchen table. Then, a new person shows up at the door.

With the film’s opening words in mind, the house and its surroundings are clearly meant to be some kind of purgatory. Without dialogue, and with very little to hold onto in terms of incident, First Days‘ powerful images guide a minimal narrative with striking clarity. A wandering light through a nighttime forest would seem cryptic in any other context, but here you immediately grasp it as a signifier for passing on to the next life. Fabian Kimoto’s grainy cinematography is evocative and mysterious, and Peter Bräker’s soundscape, a mixture of creaking floors, hooting owls, and a myriad of nature sounds set to ambient background noise further underlines the otherworldly nature of the film’s environment. It is a sensorial feast, culminating in an abstract sequence when Nasheeka leaves this limbo, a scene that at times feels like being slingshotted around Interstellar‘s Gargantua.

With Karrer (whose first film Füür brännt also debuted in Rotterdam) and Allamand laying out the blueprint at the beginning, First Days is not a hard film to decode. This isn’t a film of grand statements; it is a supernatural tone poem that movingly depicts the idea that we should not fear death, for the path beyond it is peaceful, a soothing thought that might even convert the staunchest atheist.