Tilda Swinton in a still from ‘The Eternal Daughter’ Photo credit: A24
Filmmaker Joanna Hogg wants you to feel uncomfortable. eternal daughterThird with him Monument The series deftly and hauntingly explores themes of trauma and memory through a story about a mother and daughter (both played by Tilda Swinton); The setting is a deserted old fort hotel surrounded by fog and forests, and the sounds of cold winds filtering through the cracks of the wood add to the eeriness. But a few minutes into the film, a sense of uneasiness sets in outside the frames and in the minds of the audience, as this is a film that takes all the time to reveal itself and what you are shown to be. Can’t trust him. By that I mean that eternal daughter Shows his trump cards but also lies about them. Everything about this film looks incredible, which would work if it had more to back it up.
Julie takes her mother Rosalind on her birthday to an old castle where the latter lived most of her life. Julie wants to make a film about her mother’s life but struggles with the dilemma of whether it will be overstepped. Further, we also realize that her mother is a puzzle she cannot solve and the complexities of the relationship add more weight to Julie’s shoulders. She is also awakened at night by a strange noise coming from an upstairs window, and spends her nights walking the hotel’s dark, lonely staircases, halls, and courtyards. The metaphorical and literal supernatural apparitions he witnesses add to the tension in the atmosphere.
Eternal Daughter (English)
Director: Joanna Hogg
The cast: Tilda Swinton, Joseph Mydell, Carly-Sophia Davies
Run time: 96 minutes
The story line: A young woman and her mother visit an old castle hotel where she spent a large part of her life. The woman begins to experience some strange events there at night.
Tracing the stay of this mother and daughter in this deserted place, Shining-esque hotel, eternal daughter Feels like a bright dream in a cold night. From start to finish, everything about it is in true old Hollywood style, from the music (‘Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106: I. Andante tranquillo’) to the grainy film style. The play on the audience’s minds starts from the beginning, with how Hogg chooses to frame the action—we never see both Julie and Rosalind together. With Swinton painting both characters with distinct strokes, this experimental distance itches on the big screen. The method of framing (some frames are even randomly mirrored to create an illusion of sorts) is the first of the film’s many attempts to disrupt an otherwise serious experience. These quirks are how the film builds itself into our minds, but some of them—like how the hotel receptionist (Carly-Sophia Davies) sings the aforementioned theme music—come across as small gestures. come.
The film’s disturbing sense of psychological drama reaches new heights when you start to feel how it changes its attempt to throw you. From the first time Julie records her mother at the dinner table, to the hotel staff’s complete ignorance of Rosalind’s presence, to Bills (played by Joseph Middel, a worker at the hotel) refusing Julie’s dinner invitation; And spending time with Rosalind, each awkward scene suggests the possibility of a long-drawn-out puzzle being solved, but it isn’t. It is also a film with a quiet dramatic pace. It is not the dialogue or the action but its purely audio-visual experience that has any scope for drama.
It’s only towards the end that the film makes no effort to spell out more than it likes. Apart from Hogg’s ability to use the hotel to create a sense of concrete physical space, it is Swinton who is most impressive in her dual roles. Thanks to this, we see that, even though Julie and Roseland are often together in a scene and quite alone in the frame, there is a sense of tug-of-war between these similar but distinct characters.
eternal daughterA spiritual sequel to Hogg and Swinton’s Monument films, about a daughter who struggles to understand her mother and her attachment to her, and a filmmaker who doesn’t know if she can make a film about the person whose She doesn’t fully know about it. It’s just unfortunate that you spend so much time peeling back the many layers of it that sometimes yield no fruit other than experiencing the disturbing, destructive nature it speaks of.
The Eternal Daughter is currently playing in theaters.
