following the race Joanna Hogg an extraordinarily slow transition from behind the camera, a progress as slow as the pace of his films. Until her international rise thanks to her fourth feature film, “Memory” (2019) – thanks in large part to the support of Martin Scorsese, who decided to produce it – his films had trouble getting outside of their home country; maybe the movies were taken into consideration very British in the same way to find an audience abroad. yasujiro oz -one of its main references, just as Eric Rohmer– was considered in his time too Japanese a director to be successful in the rest of the world. The retrospective that D’A Festival Cine Barcelona is dedicating to him these days shows just how wrong this assumption is.
“Memory” meant for Hogg the adoption of a reflective narrative method and the blurring of the dividing line between fiction and memories. Both in it and in its continuation, ‘Memory’. In Episode II’ (2021), the director took inspiration from his own life to narrate. The story of Julie, a film student in the 80s, who started a toxic relationship. and then in a creative blooming process; In both films, Julie and her mother Rosalind are respectivelyHonor the real-life mother and daughter Swinton Byrne and Tilda Swinton.
And of course, the heroes of Hogg’s new work, “Eternal Girl” – projected these days at the Barcelona festival, before its commercial premiere on April 28 – a mother and a daughter named Rosalind and Julie, or on this occasion Both are played by Tilda Swinton. He and Hogg are friends. since they met at a boarding school over forty years ago; in the short film ‘Caprice’ (1986), the director’s graduation project for the first time, ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘Red Shoes’ (1948), German Expressionism and ‘New Wave’ aesthetics.
Hogg made his feature film debut at age 47., twenty years after completing his education and spending that period signing music videos and dedicating himself, above all, to directing television editing. His first three films since then—none of which were released in Spain at the time—make an increasingly radical exploration of the demographic sector to which he belongs, in which he takes an unmistakably critical but thorough look at the British upper class. … empathy. In “Unrelated” (2007), he accompanied a woman who was stuck in a particularly crippling version of her midlife crisis; In ‘Archipelago’ (2010), he designed a family reunion that quickly turned into fights and hysteria.; His most experimental work, ‘Exhibition’ (2013), offers a portrait of a couple exploring the intriguing home they live in and perfectly illustrates the director’s interest in the subject. How the spaces we live in affect our relationships.
Minimalist narrative scaffolds are works that look deceptively simple because of their bland character. mostly impromptu dialogues -Hogg’s filming is not based on a script itself and the moderation of performances. In any case, its complexity is evident, thanks to the pictorial gaze shown by the director; precision in framing and composition of static shots designed to facilitate the circulation of figures in the filmed area and in constant dialogue with the offscreen; what these official decisions tell us about the characters, people repressing their emotional wounds – until he stops doing it – and above all expresses himself through what is quiet and often played by non-professional players; and to the climate of mystery and unrest this general strife produces.
Each of these fictions has an autobiographical aspect. -For example, in ‘Unrelated’ Hogg was inspired by both his father’s death and his inability to have children of his own – but let’s say from then on British cinema became a veiled form of telling your own story. Moreover, his last three films have been shown to be less affordable and clandestine than the first three, and more typically cinematographic; diptych
‘Memorabilia’ embraces emotion—dramatic simplicity, yes—without hesitation, and even ‘Eternal Girl’ features horror film. “The great fear he is trying to examine is the fear of losing your mother.” explains the director. Despite all this, the direction of his next film is not easy to predict, but in any case, it’s easy to assume that it will solidify him as one of the most relevant and under-defended figures in contemporary cinema. .