Cold in exterior, Fallen Leaves does not shy away from present-moment realities of job insecurity, surveillance, war, and widespread precarity. This coldness also derives from its carefully precise compositions and its restrained, awkward performances (thinking of the moment they sit on opposite ends of the couch after dinner).
In spite of the presentation of a constructed, tightly wound universe, the emotional core of it -- another precarity of missed encounters, absence and the unspoken -- feels as true as something…