QUICK’ N DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN
Films of course come with their USP (unique selling point). In the case of director Ronan Day-Lewis’ first feature, Anemone, that USP is the film’s co-writer, Daniel Day-Lewis. The film is a collaboration between father and son, and given Day-Lewis’ formidable reputation in front of the camera from his work with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, P.T, Anderson, Philip Kaufman, Michael Mann and Jim Sheridan, among others, Anemone was going to have to manage a weight of curiosity, if not expectation.
Set in Northern England, the story follows Jem (Sean Bean), who sets off in search of his brother Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis), a hermit-like creature who has sought sanctuary in the woods. Jem receives a mixed reception from his older brother, and as the pair talk, they begin to slowly confront political and personal wounds that have never healed. Things are emotionally complicated because Jem is now in a longterm relationship with Nessa (Samantha Morton), who Ray walked out on. Jem knows that his nephew Brian (Samuel Bottomley), a soldier who is in some strife, needs his father to lean on. Hoping to persuade Ray to return with him, Jem sets off on a what will be a difficult journey.
The rightful focus should be the script and dialogue, and yet, there’s the curious recurring sound of the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata. One has to prick their ears and listen to its discordant sound, but it carries with it a significant meaning. The sonata’s first movement stirs a sadness in the soul, as if deep down in your being, you are weeping. This has always been the gift of the sonata, which drastically metamorphoses its pacing and rhythm in the successive movements. That one has to listen closely, positions the sad lyricism as a metaphor for the sadness entrenched deep in these characters’ lives.
One of the film’s strengths is its editing, as it splices through space and time to synchronise the conversations about similar incidents and themes that the characters are engaging in. This shrinks the world and heightens its emotional intimacy by juxtaposing this with the broken and estranged relationships at the heart of the story.
Despite the presence of Day-Lewis, Morton and Bean, it is Hattie (Safia Oakley-Green), a friend of Brian’s, who captures the audience’s curiosity. Day-Lewis might deliver one of the film’s most notable monologues that references taking a shit in someone’s mouth, that is beginning to become a lore onto itself, but Hattie’s gentle presence has enough power to not allow itself to be overshadowed. With only limited screen time, Hattie’s face is like a landscape, whose contours and eyes contain something unspoken. There’s something truly alluring that we’re never given the time to discover, because in the blink of an eye she is gone, only to appear briefly again in a later scene.
Anemone is a film interested in characters reckoning with the past, and how one generation’s struggles become another’s struggles. Leaning into the art house sensibility, the performances and script are overwhelming, under whose weight the film cracks. Anemone is prone to indulgence, and as the film unfolds you can hear the self-congratulatory pride of its filmmakers. Neither Ronan Day-Lewis nor his father confront what story they are trying to tell. It doesn’t take long for the film to lose its audience, who are expected to be seduced by the actors’ presence onscreen. The film’s themes and ideas are so elusive, one never knows what to make of Anemone, nor why it exists. There’s a kernel of an idea and thematic journey, but it’s suffocated and never allowed to develop into anything of note. Even those with the strongest of wills to see this through to the end will be severely tested. Anemone is not a difficult film as much as it is obtuse. And then, what little thread you can pull at offers nothing truly compelling to redeem its overlylong 121 minutes.
Anemone just played in Best of Festivals at the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
