The documentary Counting begins with a physicist explaining on the soundtrack that at this point in time, we only really know about 4 percent of the universe. The rest of it is mysterious dark matter and dark energy. After the cosmic introduction, we enter the rhythms of New York City.
We see the construction of buildings, the flow of traffic, the boarding and exiting of subway trains. There are also the rhythms of natureâfalling slow, birds searching for food, and leaves swaying in the wind. This is the first chapter of the film, and it ends with people chanting âI canât breatheâ at a Black Lives Matter protest.
The next chapter opens in Moscow, but nothing much happens here. Another chapter takes us to Istanbul, and we are shown the poor and upscale streets and poor and upscale stores of the city as we hear about the Gezi Park Protests of 2013, which came down to a struggle between public space and private space. Another chapter goes deep into the NSAâs spying.
The director Jem Cohen, whose last film was the marvelous feature Museum Hours, is clearly channeling the spirit of late Chris Marker in this long, poetic, political essay about the human condition, the human habituate, neoliberal capitalism, and urban geography. 
