Stefan van de Graaff (Writer/Director), Raquel Baldwin (Producer), Michael Whittle (Composer), Elle Kent (Costume Designer). Photo by Teresa Hedström.
Writer and Director Stefan van de Graaffs solo debut took its time to find a screen, but the wait was all worth it.
The movie takes its place in the grandparents’ home, at the wake for Grandmother. The scenery is quite limited to mostly two rooms but it never feels boring. And speaking of the scenery, the colour scheme is beautiful. It’s soothing but cold and hard too.
The details, from what’s placed on the table to how the wallpapers pattern shift during the movie is mind blowing.
This is a movie you can watch time after time and still notice new details in.
The music and the sounds are the cherry on the top, lifting moments, high lightning seconds and details. It keeps you invested at all times.
This is so much more than a random screen play you go see at the cinema. (Not saying that type of movies are bad, I love seeing movies where I don’t need to be on top of my mind the whole time, but that’s the opposite to this one.)
The first thing giving away that this isn’t just a random movie is the lines/ language. Every single sentence sounds like poetry. I don’t have the knowledge to put my finger on the source of inspiration, but I’m thinking of Shakespeare. The second thing is that the characters don’t have names. It’s Father, Sister, Youngest, Youngest Cousin for example instead of names.
The plot is dark, sad and mystic. One after one the relatives start dying at Grandmother’s wake and we follow the Youngest as he tries to understand what happens around him and how to stop it.
Sometimes the script is just bizarre. The amount of death happening and the way the other relative reacts over the deaths, it’s not reasonable. But when I let go of reason I can see what I believe is the underlying message or underlying feeling: the insecurity and hopelessness, the way we question ourselves when we lose someone dear and how different people handle grief, sadness and their own conscience. On the other hand I’m convinced this is the kind of movie that reshapes every time you see it, I’m not sure I got the message at all, so if I see it again I might find another plot or explanation. I’m at least sure that the purpose of the movie is to make you think.
The cast is brilliant. Kit Connor (just 19 years old at the time) plays the lead, Youngest, and has the most screen time. One of Kit’s biggest qualities as an actor is the way he mediates feelings. He takes the audience through the whole spectrum of feelings, from sad to hysterical, self doubting to furious, desperate to discouraged.
I don’t think he left anyone unaffected.
(At the Q&A after the screening we learned that Kit got casted seven days before they started to film. He also learned the complete, complex script in that time, and never once needed to ask for a line… That makes me even more utterly impressed by him.)
Grandmother, Helena Bereen doesn’t get that much screen time but she makes the most of the lines she conveys. Charlotte Hope as a Sister, is breaking me into pieces and Grandfather, David Horovitch is a master. He switches between safe harbour and grounded comfort to give me shivers up my spine of discomfort in a second.
The movie itself isn’t like anything I’ve seen before. It feels new, mind blowing, mysterious, dark, sad and unexpected. It leaves me filled with questions and thoughts. But in a good way.