by Joanna Sodeman-Taylor
There’s nothing like writing about the premier selections of the New York Film Festival... at night. Speaking of, let’s talk about Beatrice Gibson’s debut feature At Night, a delicate, hypnotic city symphony that premiered to great reviews at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, where she won the Best Emerging Director Award, before being programmed into NYFF's Currents program. At Night stars Gibson as a filmmaker named B who’s scouting locations in Paris for an upcoming project. Being so far from her partner and her child has made her melancholic.
These explorations lead her to encountering former friend and artistic collaborator Didi (Diocuda Diaoune), a Black immigrant and single mother trying to make ends meet while living in social housing. Rather than dichotomizing their experiences, At Night frames their duet as part of a larger, porous pursuit for commonality among women, especially those who make up the city’s night life. The film’s attention sprawls to encompass six other figures of different backgrounds and occupations to be its stewards, artists and poets and sex workers and laborers...
At Night takes its name from Alice Notley’s poem “At Night the States”, and is described by Gibson as a loose adaptation of Notley’s epic poem “The Descent of Alette”. Notley was intended to star in the film in some capacity before passing away in 2025. Audio of her reading passages from “The Descent of Alette” are threaded throughout the film, yet Gibson interpolates them almost as part of Elvin Brandi’s magnificent score, which itself sounds like it’s conducting the buzz of a bustling cityscape, making it into music. Gibson weaves Notley’s readings deeper into the fabric of At Night by making them feel as immediate as any discussion or performance we witness.
The recitations are key to At Night’s atmosphere even as they automatically dispel some of the spontaneity Gibson’s direction cultivates elsewhere. Or do these readings reinforce a sense of honesty, the truth of Notley’s words enhancing the reality of Paris and its denizens? Actors are convincingly directed to give the impression of being non-professional “real” people, which they mostly are. Gibson, DP Ben Rivers, and editor Liyo Gong regard them as everyday figures even as they light them as beautifully as any movie star of old. Conversations feel as though they’re unfolding in real time, all the more intimate and vulnerable for being presented so off-handedly.
Yet, even when At Night is at its most beautiful and purposefully constructed, Gibson still retains the sense of someone exploring the sleepy side streets, ducking into crowded clubs or 24-hour diners before heading back out into the mysterious nowhere of nighttime. This grace extends to queer singer and musician Adam Christensen, whose musical act is the female persona Madam and whose testimony folds into the director's dialogues about womanhood with zero fuss. Their performance in a queer nightclub is one of At Night’s most purely pleasurable diversions - how often do you see a drag queen crooning while playing the accordion?
The film is poetic and patient in ways that could lead to either an enraptured viewer or a contented nap. I belonged strictly in the former camp, but I’m perpetually sleepy enough to see the appeal in the latter option. At Night reminded me more than once of the Austrian drama bluish (which I covered two years ago) in relation to its pacing, its utter beauty in capturing the nightlife of a major city and its focus on multiple women freefloating through a metropolitan area, through life. But where bluish was purposefully thin on characterization - more than it needed it to be, for sure - At Night makes sturdier claims as an encapsulation of its chosen city and the people living in it. Gibson gives the different degrees of companionship and melancholy her characters express a palpable substance.
A better reference point might be the Belgian film Ghost Tropic, another immaculately shot tale of a woman making unexpected communions on a late-night journey and one of my favorite films of the last decade. The characters in both features have their own relationships to all aspects of life after dark, whether they’re looking for a good time or trying to get home from work after sleeping past their trainstop. Yet there’s no automatic sense of community between any two people, regardless of class or identity or the sheer fact that it’s past everyone’s bedtime. During their first major interaction, B and Didi have a deeply personal conversation while trapped in a convenience store. The filmmaker vocalizes a shame she’s carried about the decline of their friendship for decades, succeeding at her art while Didi continues to struggle in the UK, and the other woman lets her old friend finish before remarking how pointless her despair is. Why bemoan your victory if you don't come back to help the companion who lost?
The common ground B longs for with Didi is gone forever. It’s a short, tart response to Gibson’s own attempts at reconciling the contrasting experiences of her subjects. She tries to find any unifying similarities that would allow these women to coexist in harmony and comes up short. Rather than forcing them into a monolith, At Night lets the lack of resolution stand. The coloratura of experiences Gibson finds is the point, and her film is all the richer for exploring these perspectives and letting their singularities stand tall.
At Night also played TIFF and is currently screening at the London Film Festival. With such exposure, one hopes it can secure distribution worldwide. Be on the lookout for this Parisian gem.