This review originally ran September 6, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival.
An atmospheric labyrinth of reflections and projections, “The Eternal Daughter” expands on British director Joanna Hogg’s recent excavations into memory, both as torturous malaise and gratifying human virtue crucial to deciphering interpersonal relationships.
A master of meta storytelling, Hogg once again transmutes intimate biographical material into the dramatic foundation of her intricate cinematic monuments for this ghostly saga following a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother on a birthday holiday. They are, however, not just any progenitor-offspring duo, but characters from her last brainchildren.
Tilda Swinton, the director’s most loyal onscreen collaborator, incarnates Julie Hart, the burgeoning filmmaker and Hogg surrogate in “The Souvenir” films, but now at a more mature age. Miraculously, the actress also reprises her role as Julie’s mother, Rosalind, from the previous installments, effectively...
An atmospheric labyrinth of reflections and projections, “The Eternal Daughter” expands on British director Joanna Hogg’s recent excavations into memory, both as torturous malaise and gratifying human virtue crucial to deciphering interpersonal relationships.
A master of meta storytelling, Hogg once again transmutes intimate biographical material into the dramatic foundation of her intricate cinematic monuments for this ghostly saga following a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother on a birthday holiday. They are, however, not just any progenitor-offspring duo, but characters from her last brainchildren.
Tilda Swinton, the director’s most loyal onscreen collaborator, incarnates Julie Hart, the burgeoning filmmaker and Hogg surrogate in “The Souvenir” films, but now at a more mature age. Miraculously, the actress also reprises her role as Julie’s mother, Rosalind, from the previous installments, effectively...
- 12/2/2022
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
In the tradition of Okja and Hail, Caesar!, writer-producer-director Joanna Hogg has gifted the world with two Tildas in one film. Just shy of Suspiria and Teknolust’s respective triple- and quadruple-Tilda count, The Eternal Daughter uses this device differently than others. Where Bong Joon-ho and the Coens employed such technique for twins and Guadagnino and Hershman-Leeson used it for science fiction and horror, Hogg plays it more subtly: mother and daughter. Or, to boil them into one, an eternal daughter.
We open on Rosalind and Julie—the former giving Swinton’s The Souvenir: Part II gray-haired grandma look and the latter mostly looking like herself, a shorter-haired Joanna Hogg—driving through a sea of fog in the dark, pulling into a Welsh bed and breakfast where they’ll stay for the remainder of the film. It’s a tonal precursor to a movie so fog-laden it makes Sleepy Hollow look clear-eyed.
We open on Rosalind and Julie—the former giving Swinton’s The Souvenir: Part II gray-haired grandma look and the latter mostly looking like herself, a shorter-haired Joanna Hogg—driving through a sea of fog in the dark, pulling into a Welsh bed and breakfast where they’ll stay for the remainder of the film. It’s a tonal precursor to a movie so fog-laden it makes Sleepy Hollow look clear-eyed.
- 10/10/2022
- by Luke Hicks
- The Film Stage
Joanna Hogg concludes the story she began with "The Souvenir," and continued in "The Souvenir Part II", with the spooky "The Eternal Daughter." To be clear: this isn't quite a sequel to those films. But at the same time, it is. "The Souvenir" films were autobiographical works in which Honor Swinton Byrne, daughter of Tilda Swinton, played Julie, a fictionalized version of Hogg, while Swinton played Rosalind, a version of Hogg's mother. Now, with "The Eternal Daughter," Swinton is back and pulling double duty — she's playing both Julie and Rosalind this time ("The Souvenir" films were set in the 1980s, while "The Eternal Daughter" is set in the present, which explains while the Julie character is older now).
Once again, Hogg is getting personal. Instead of making a movie about herself, here, she's making a movie about her mother. Sort of. More accurately, she's interrogating herself and asking the question:...
Once again, Hogg is getting personal. Instead of making a movie about herself, here, she's making a movie about her mother. Sort of. More accurately, she's interrogating herself and asking the question:...
- 9/13/2022
- by Chris Evangelista
- Slash Film
A mysterious nighttime mist swirls through Joanna Hogg’s sorrowful, secluded “The Eternal Daughter.” It is pumped, in artificial, Hammer-horror puffs and plumes, across groves and gravel driveways. It snakes around gables topped with gargoyles, snags on hedges, rubs against dark, staring, possibly haunted windows. It shrouds the film the way the unspoken words, undefined guilt and unfulfilled duties that exist between maybe every mother and daughter can cloud the truth of their fraught, primal connection. And it is this grave film’s most apposite motif, in being beautiful and mood-making but vaporous: try to grasp it and your hand closes on nothing but a faint, damp chill.
Filmmaker Julie (Tilda Swinton), her aging mother Rosalind (Tilda Swinton) and Rosalind’s dog Louis (Tilda Swinton’s dog Louis) arrive in a white cab one foggy night at the remote Welsh hotel that Julie has booked for a stay over Rosalind’s December birthday.
Filmmaker Julie (Tilda Swinton), her aging mother Rosalind (Tilda Swinton) and Rosalind’s dog Louis (Tilda Swinton’s dog Louis) arrive in a white cab one foggy night at the remote Welsh hotel that Julie has booked for a stay over Rosalind’s December birthday.
- 9/6/2022
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
An under-the-radar project that saw Joanna Hogg reteam with muse Tilda Swinton, the filmmaker also brought back cinemtaographer Ed Rutherford (they worked on Archipelago (2010) and Exhibition (2013) together), Hogg fanboy Martin Scorsese (once again an executive producer) and the A24 folks (the distributor who backed both The Souvenir films) into the fold. Filmed in late 2020 in Wales and also starring first time thesp Carly-Sophia Davies and Joseph Mydell, The Eternal Daughter unpacks a story about a dwelling that is restless. A24 have so many items ready for 2022, and while the chances are low, Hogg did have a great premiere for The Souvenir.…...
- 11/24/2021
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Steve McQueen and Michaela Coel shows dominate with eight awards.
Steve McQueen’s Small Axe and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You were the big winners at the Bafta Craft Awards, taking home eight of the 21 awards between them.
Small Axe, the BBC1 drama anthology about the lives of West Indian immigrants in 1960s, 70s and 80s London, claimed five gongs including: JoJo Williams for make-up & hair design; Jacqueline Durran for costume design; Helen Scott for production design; Shabier Kirchner for photography & lighting: fiction and Gary Davy for scripted casting.
Coel’s BBC1/HBO true-life inspired dramedy about a...
Steve McQueen’s Small Axe and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You were the big winners at the Bafta Craft Awards, taking home eight of the 21 awards between them.
Small Axe, the BBC1 drama anthology about the lives of West Indian immigrants in 1960s, 70s and 80s London, claimed five gongs including: JoJo Williams for make-up & hair design; Jacqueline Durran for costume design; Helen Scott for production design; Shabier Kirchner for photography & lighting: fiction and Gary Davy for scripted casting.
Coel’s BBC1/HBO true-life inspired dramedy about a...
- 5/25/2021
- by John Elmes Broadcast
- ScreenDaily
It’s common for channels to make hyperbolic claims when introducing a new show, but when Sky’s drama heads describe Little Birds as ‘not like anything else on telly,’ they’re not wrong.
The drama’s six 45-minute episodes inspired by a series of erotic short stories combine to form a lavish period melodrama with few points of TV comparison. Little Birds is an exploration of female sensuality and liberation set against a backdrop of colonial violence and simmering rebellion. It’s a provocative, heightened, almost cartoonish fairy tale about struggles for personal and political independence. It’s colourful and stylised, tongue-in-cheek yet earnest, with a killer 1950s soundtrack.
Take a look at the trailer:
If that appealed, then here’s everything you need to know:
Where was it filmed?
Little Birds was largely filmed in summer 2019 in the Spanish town of Tarifa, on the southernmost tip of Spanish Andalusia,...
The drama’s six 45-minute episodes inspired by a series of erotic short stories combine to form a lavish period melodrama with few points of TV comparison. Little Birds is an exploration of female sensuality and liberation set against a backdrop of colonial violence and simmering rebellion. It’s a provocative, heightened, almost cartoonish fairy tale about struggles for personal and political independence. It’s colourful and stylised, tongue-in-cheek yet earnest, with a killer 1950s soundtrack.
Take a look at the trailer:
If that appealed, then here’s everything you need to know:
Where was it filmed?
Little Birds was largely filmed in summer 2019 in the Spanish town of Tarifa, on the southernmost tip of Spanish Andalusia,...
- 8/4/2020
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Chicago – During the scourge of the AIDS epidemic, at its height in the late 1980s, a playwright lost her brother to the condition. Inspired by him, Paula Vogel wrote “The Baltimore Waltz,” a story about her and her brother’s travels through Europe – and filtered through the prism of fantasy and the movies. The Brown Paper Box Company presents a re-staging of the play in Chicago through February 19th, 2017.
Play Rating: 3.5/5.0
Using the modern tools of storefront theater – computerized music cues, slideshow presentation and creative use of space – Brown Paper Box Company takes us on a travelogue through Europe, with a brother and sister duo, trailed by the mysterious “Third Man.” The three person cast create a passionate show of madness and mystery, having symbolically to do with the suddenness of the AIDS crisis, and how loved ones were absorbed and lost so quickly. The “waltz” in the title is the dance of life,...
Play Rating: 3.5/5.0
Using the modern tools of storefront theater – computerized music cues, slideshow presentation and creative use of space – Brown Paper Box Company takes us on a travelogue through Europe, with a brother and sister duo, trailed by the mysterious “Third Man.” The three person cast create a passionate show of madness and mystery, having symbolically to do with the suddenness of the AIDS crisis, and how loved ones were absorbed and lost so quickly. The “waltz” in the title is the dance of life,...
- 1/29/2017
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Damian Lewis’s puritanical minister and Andrea Riseborough’s terrorised wife must deal with an unexpected arrival
Stunning views of the Isle of Mull lend much-needed beauty to this sternly overwrought tale of puritanical minister Balor McNeil (Damian Lewis) terrorising his outsider wife Aislin (Andrea Riseborough) on an increasingly deserted Scottish island. When young offender Fionn (Ross Anderson) is dumped on his doorstep, the minister’s perpetual seething enters a new register, so it’s a relief to everyone when he sets sail on a boat full of church pews, leaving wife and incomer to fend for themselves. Cinematographer Ed Rutherford, who worked wonders for Joanna Hogg on Archipelago and Exhibition, skilfully marks the tonal shift from shadowy storm clouds to hallucinogenic sunshine, leaving Riseborough and Anderson to frolic briefly in this fragile new Eden, awaiting the returning tempest. Writer-director Corinna McFarlane counterposes Bergmanesque interiors with gaping exteriors, while Alastair Caplin’s eerie,...
Stunning views of the Isle of Mull lend much-needed beauty to this sternly overwrought tale of puritanical minister Balor McNeil (Damian Lewis) terrorising his outsider wife Aislin (Andrea Riseborough) on an increasingly deserted Scottish island. When young offender Fionn (Ross Anderson) is dumped on his doorstep, the minister’s perpetual seething enters a new register, so it’s a relief to everyone when he sets sail on a boat full of church pews, leaving wife and incomer to fend for themselves. Cinematographer Ed Rutherford, who worked wonders for Joanna Hogg on Archipelago and Exhibition, skilfully marks the tonal shift from shadowy storm clouds to hallucinogenic sunshine, leaving Riseborough and Anderson to frolic briefly in this fragile new Eden, awaiting the returning tempest. Writer-director Corinna McFarlane counterposes Bergmanesque interiors with gaping exteriors, while Alastair Caplin’s eerie,...
- 5/22/2016
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
David Farr’s tale of a young couple and their peculiar neighbours downstairs oozes anxiety and paranoia
This home-grown psychological chiller starts with an ultrasound image of an unborn baby’s face and a la-la-la theme which evokes Krzysztof Komeda’s lullaby from Rosemary’s Baby. The spirit of Polanski looms large as young middle-class couple Kate (Clémence Poésy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) find their expectant anxieties mirrored by the new couple in the downstairs flat, with whose barely repressed “otherness” they become inextricably, guiltily intertwined. Playwright and theatre director David Farr (who co-wrote Joe Wright’s Hanna and scripted TV’s The Night Manager) makes a solid fist of his big-screen debut as writer/director, generating some small-scale chills which are undiminished by the occasionally creaky dialogue. Cinematographer Ed Rutherford, who did such brilliant work for Joanna Hogg on Archipelago and Exhibition, uses woozy camera moves to capture...
This home-grown psychological chiller starts with an ultrasound image of an unborn baby’s face and a la-la-la theme which evokes Krzysztof Komeda’s lullaby from Rosemary’s Baby. The spirit of Polanski looms large as young middle-class couple Kate (Clémence Poésy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) find their expectant anxieties mirrored by the new couple in the downstairs flat, with whose barely repressed “otherness” they become inextricably, guiltily intertwined. Playwright and theatre director David Farr (who co-wrote Joe Wright’s Hanna and scripted TV’s The Night Manager) makes a solid fist of his big-screen debut as writer/director, generating some small-scale chills which are undiminished by the occasionally creaky dialogue. Cinematographer Ed Rutherford, who did such brilliant work for Joanna Hogg on Archipelago and Exhibition, uses woozy camera moves to capture...
- 3/13/2016
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
Changeling Chronicles: Farr’s Eerie Debut a Duel of Deserving Motherhood
Screenwriter and playwright David Farr makes his directorial debut with The Ones Below, a psychological quartet examining class issues, motherhood as a rite of passage, and the vulnerability of guilt. Tonally comparable to Polanski’s trio of horrific happenings in urban apartments, Farr channels the innate awkwardness of adult interactions and the unnamed tensions of familial competitions and contrived intermingling. As a genre film, the narrative plays out with almost disappointing predictability. But under the guise of a socioeconomic thriller operating as a nightmare of the privileged, Farr manages a striking portrait of the perverse relationship of building family vs. building community.
Kate (Clemence Poesy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) have been happily married for quite some time and are finally expecting their first child, the perfect addition to their life in the comfortably affluent suburbs of London. New...
Screenwriter and playwright David Farr makes his directorial debut with The Ones Below, a psychological quartet examining class issues, motherhood as a rite of passage, and the vulnerability of guilt. Tonally comparable to Polanski’s trio of horrific happenings in urban apartments, Farr channels the innate awkwardness of adult interactions and the unnamed tensions of familial competitions and contrived intermingling. As a genre film, the narrative plays out with almost disappointing predictability. But under the guise of a socioeconomic thriller operating as a nightmare of the privileged, Farr manages a striking portrait of the perverse relationship of building family vs. building community.
Kate (Clemence Poesy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) have been happily married for quite some time and are finally expecting their first child, the perfect addition to their life in the comfortably affluent suburbs of London. New...
- 9/13/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Liam Gillick in New York on Exhibition: "The problem is essentially a crisis in representation. These people in the film thought they were beyond difference." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
A married couple live in a fantastic house in London designed by late architect James Melvin. Their relationship to each other and to the building, their work as artists and how it relates to their bodies are exposed by Joanna Hogg in Exhibition.
Liam Gillick and I continue our conversation with an examination of a crisis in representation, the influence of Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, and how Valie Export and early Marina Abramovic informed Viv Albertine's portrait of the artist D. Ed Rutherford's cinematography, Liam's future in acting and the meaning of bare feet are also explored.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Where did you first see the finished film?
Liam Gillick as H on his belly in the grass with...
A married couple live in a fantastic house in London designed by late architect James Melvin. Their relationship to each other and to the building, their work as artists and how it relates to their bodies are exposed by Joanna Hogg in Exhibition.
Liam Gillick and I continue our conversation with an examination of a crisis in representation, the influence of Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, and how Valie Export and early Marina Abramovic informed Viv Albertine's portrait of the artist D. Ed Rutherford's cinematography, Liam's future in acting and the meaning of bare feet are also explored.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Where did you first see the finished film?
Liam Gillick as H on his belly in the grass with...
- 7/29/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Exhibition
Written & Directed by Joanna Hogg
UK, 2013
Exhibition is a collection of moments that add up to something if the viewer is prepared to do the math. Plots, character arcs and narrative considerations are nowhere to be found in this art house offering from writer-director, Joanna Hogg. It’s an immersive visual experience, but its objectives remain tantalizingly out of reach. Challenging and uncompromising, this film is not for everyone. For cinephiles who enjoy the heavy lifting, however, there’s just enough weight to warrant the workout.
At its heart, Exhibition is a love triangle between two married artists and their modernist house. The husband, H (Liam Gillick), knows that it’s time to leave, but his wife, D (Viviane Albertine), is reluctant to accept the truth. We spend most of our time with D, quietly peering over her tightened shoulders. She’s a struggling performance artist who mixes sexuality...
Written & Directed by Joanna Hogg
UK, 2013
Exhibition is a collection of moments that add up to something if the viewer is prepared to do the math. Plots, character arcs and narrative considerations are nowhere to be found in this art house offering from writer-director, Joanna Hogg. It’s an immersive visual experience, but its objectives remain tantalizingly out of reach. Challenging and uncompromising, this film is not for everyone. For cinephiles who enjoy the heavy lifting, however, there’s just enough weight to warrant the workout.
At its heart, Exhibition is a love triangle between two married artists and their modernist house. The husband, H (Liam Gillick), knows that it’s time to leave, but his wife, D (Viviane Albertine), is reluctant to accept the truth. We spend most of our time with D, quietly peering over her tightened shoulders. She’s a struggling performance artist who mixes sexuality...
- 6/30/2014
- by J.R. Kinnard
- SoundOnSight
First-time director Virginia Gilbert does lovely things with the Provençal light, but her tale of English expats lacks Joanna Hogg's savage honesty
Presumably first-time writer-director Virginia Gilbert (daughter of Brian Gilbert, Wilde) was aiming to make something oblique and fragile about Brits abroad, in the style of Joanna Hogg (Unrelated, Archipelago). She even hired Hogg's cinematographer, Ed Rutherford. But this slight, conventional tale has nothing of Hogg's rigorous formalism or savage honesty. James Fox and Brenda Fricker play one of those middle-class English couples who've retired to France and act all proprietorial about the place even though, in Brenda's case, they barely speak the language. Their marriage has been becalmed by routine, so when Fox meets feline-featured Natalie Dormer, he offers, with a little too much chivalry, to show her and her jerk of a boyfriend (Paul Nicholls) around Nîmes. Rutherford does lovely things with the Provençal light, but...
Presumably first-time writer-director Virginia Gilbert (daughter of Brian Gilbert, Wilde) was aiming to make something oblique and fragile about Brits abroad, in the style of Joanna Hogg (Unrelated, Archipelago). She even hired Hogg's cinematographer, Ed Rutherford. But this slight, conventional tale has nothing of Hogg's rigorous formalism or savage honesty. James Fox and Brenda Fricker play one of those middle-class English couples who've retired to France and act all proprietorial about the place even though, in Brenda's case, they barely speak the language. Their marriage has been becalmed by routine, so when Fox meets feline-featured Natalie Dormer, he offers, with a little too much chivalry, to show her and her jerk of a boyfriend (Paul Nicholls) around Nîmes. Rutherford does lovely things with the Provençal light, but...
- 12/6/2013
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
As Corinna Villari-McFarlane’s drama prepares to shoot, John Sessions, Kate Dickie and Ross Anderson join the cast led by Andrea Riseborough and Damian Lewis.
Love story The Silent Storm, starring Andrea Riseborough and Damian Lewis, is to begin shooting on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, on Sunday (June 23).
Scottish comedian John Sessions has joined the cast alongside Kate Dickie, recently seen in Prometheus, and newcomer Ross Anderson.
Key crew includes cinematographer Ed Rutherford (Archipelago, A Long Way from Home), editor Kate Baird (Skyfall) and production designer Matthew Button (A Lonely Place to Die).
For full production credits visit
The Silent Storm
Writer-director Corinna Villari-McFarlane’s script follows an enigmatic outsider (Riseborough) living on a remote Scottish island who is caught between her commanding husband (Lewis) and a 17 year-old delinquent (Anderson).
The project, previously announced by Screen during Cannes, is being sold by West End Films and is produced by Nicky Bentham (Moon) for Neon Films.
Execs...
Love story The Silent Storm, starring Andrea Riseborough and Damian Lewis, is to begin shooting on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, on Sunday (June 23).
Scottish comedian John Sessions has joined the cast alongside Kate Dickie, recently seen in Prometheus, and newcomer Ross Anderson.
Key crew includes cinematographer Ed Rutherford (Archipelago, A Long Way from Home), editor Kate Baird (Skyfall) and production designer Matthew Button (A Lonely Place to Die).
For full production credits visit
The Silent Storm
Writer-director Corinna Villari-McFarlane’s script follows an enigmatic outsider (Riseborough) living on a remote Scottish island who is caught between her commanding husband (Lewis) and a 17 year-old delinquent (Anderson).
The project, previously announced by Screen during Cannes, is being sold by West End Films and is produced by Nicky Bentham (Moon) for Neon Films.
Execs...
- 6/21/2013
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
All the Cannes gossip, including news of Michael Fassbender's fake head and Naomie Harris's long walk to stardom
M vs Moneypenny
Next year's race for the actress Oscars is already taking tasty shape after Cannes. It should be a battle of the Princesses as we see Cannes juror Nicole Kidman in Grace of Monaco go toe-to-toe with Naomi Watts in a film now, finally and officially, named Diana. But there could be another twist as two Bond girls enter the fray. Dame Judi Dench, who was M in the Bond movies, must be a cert for Philomena, the British road movie written by and co-starring Steve Coogan, for which Harvey Weinstein parted with $6m after seeing just a seven-minute showreel at Cannes, clearly scenting a movie that will swell his Oscar cabinet. But Weinstein has also swooped on Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and is, I hear, preparing...
M vs Moneypenny
Next year's race for the actress Oscars is already taking tasty shape after Cannes. It should be a battle of the Princesses as we see Cannes juror Nicole Kidman in Grace of Monaco go toe-to-toe with Naomi Watts in a film now, finally and officially, named Diana. But there could be another twist as two Bond girls enter the fray. Dame Judi Dench, who was M in the Bond movies, must be a cert for Philomena, the British road movie written by and co-starring Steve Coogan, for which Harvey Weinstein parted with $6m after seeing just a seven-minute showreel at Cannes, clearly scenting a movie that will swell his Oscar cabinet. But Weinstein has also swooped on Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and is, I hear, preparing...
- 5/25/2013
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
The second film by British director Joanna Hogg is subtle, mysterious, murky and utterly distinctive. By Peter Bradshaw
Like unhappy little islands, entire of themselves, some lonely people cluster together for an unsuccessful family reunion in this deeply intelligent new film from British director Joanna Hogg. There is something exacting and audacious in it, something superbly controlled in its composition and technique. The clarity of her film-making diction is a marvel – even, or perhaps especially, when the nature of the story itself remains murkily unrevealed.
Hogg works with a series of static "tableau" camera positions. There is no musical soundtrack, just the ambient sound of birdsong or distant aeroplane buzz, only really apparent when it cuts out into silence for the next scene. Closeups are rare, and when the camera does move – just once in the entire film – it is to reflect something calamitous. Perhaps what emerges primarily is Hogg's...
Like unhappy little islands, entire of themselves, some lonely people cluster together for an unsuccessful family reunion in this deeply intelligent new film from British director Joanna Hogg. There is something exacting and audacious in it, something superbly controlled in its composition and technique. The clarity of her film-making diction is a marvel – even, or perhaps especially, when the nature of the story itself remains murkily unrevealed.
Hogg works with a series of static "tableau" camera positions. There is no musical soundtrack, just the ambient sound of birdsong or distant aeroplane buzz, only really apparent when it cuts out into silence for the next scene. Closeups are rare, and when the camera does move – just once in the entire film – it is to reflect something calamitous. Perhaps what emerges primarily is Hogg's...
- 3/4/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The second film by British director Joanna Hogg is subtle, mysterious, murky and utterly distinctive. By Peter Bradshaw
Like unhappy little islands, entire of themselves, some lonely people cluster together for an unsuccessful family reunion in this deeply intelligent new film from British director Joanna Hogg. There is something exacting and audacious in it, something superbly controlled in its composition and technique. The clarity of her film-making diction is a marvel – even, or perhaps especially, when the nature of the story itself remains murkily unrevealed.
Hogg works with a series of static "tableau" camera positions. There is no musical soundtrack, just the ambient sound of birdsong or distant aeroplane buzz, only really apparent when it cuts out into silence for the next scene. Closeups are rare, and when the camera does move – just once in the entire film – it is to reflect something calamitous. Perhaps what emerges primarily is Hogg's...
Like unhappy little islands, entire of themselves, some lonely people cluster together for an unsuccessful family reunion in this deeply intelligent new film from British director Joanna Hogg. There is something exacting and audacious in it, something superbly controlled in its composition and technique. The clarity of her film-making diction is a marvel – even, or perhaps especially, when the nature of the story itself remains murkily unrevealed.
Hogg works with a series of static "tableau" camera positions. There is no musical soundtrack, just the ambient sound of birdsong or distant aeroplane buzz, only really apparent when it cuts out into silence for the next scene. Closeups are rare, and when the camera does move – just once in the entire film – it is to reflect something calamitous. Perhaps what emerges primarily is Hogg's...
- 3/3/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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