The Souvenir
This evening I watched the film with my Aunt Janet on the TV at home. After the film we had a long and passionate debate about it. Janet found the film ultimately unsatisfying and disengaged. This was, she argued, in part due to the lack of weight and importance Hogg gives to language. Janet found that this suppressed the potential layers of the protagonists' psychology and complexity.
I'm not naturally drawn to the power of language, particularly in film. In the case of Hogg's film, it is the emphasis given to the silences and ambiguities in between spoken communication; what isn't said, which drives the film and compels me as the viewer. I argued that the medium of film is less indebted to language and speech than the theatre is, where the performer is conscious of their audience's presence. In the case of experiencing film, I personally find it's more about the witnessing of authentic human behaviour and the acute visual language and technical skill of the filmmaker and how cogently these mesh together. I think that the utilising of a semi-improvisational technique, with non-actors in the case of The Souvenir, creates a separate and distinct psychological complexity in the absence of language. As such the experience of viewing the film is one that is filled with questions and self reflection with no specific answers fed back.
I was really pleased to see The Souvenir for the first time at the grand Capitol Theatre in the city. I went to the screening with my Mum, who had a very different intuitive response to the film than her sister, my Aunt, had. My Mum is a more visual and nostalgic person and is easily swayed by artistic works that speak to her own experience. Mum understood and connected to Hogg's Julie and understood the influence and liberation of the setting of 1980s London (having lived there at that time as a twenty year old). I also have a very similar relationship with my Mum as Julie and her mother Rosalind have in the film. Janet is a frequent reader and gains much pleasure from fiction created by words. I gather that perhaps this inclination influenced her opinion of the film and her frustration with its grappling of language. It's difficult to have the same expectations of viewing a film as being immersed in a literary work.
On another note, it must also be mentioned that it felt right seeing the film with 400 other cinephiles in Walter Burley-Griffin's 1920s designed (and recently refurbished) cinema. Its flamboyant art deco style and respectful refurbishment seemed to architecturally complement Hogg's treatment of timelessness and her reinterpretation of the past.
In the cinema foyer, post-Q&A, my brief interaction with Hogg consisted of me repeatedly saying "it's a fantastic, fantastic film" over and over again. I did mention that I first saw the film with my Mum, and that that was a special experience as the film felt like it really spoke to the particular relationship I have with her. We also went on to discuss 1980s London as I'd mentioned I had recently arrived here. She mentioned that the London depicted in her film is one that has now gone out with the tide of time.
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| A still from The Souvenir which exemplifies Hogg's treatment of space: one space as the sole location of the film & the container of memory and emotion experienced over a specific point in one's life... much alike Chantal Akerman's work. Through the focus on one space, the viewer cements the space's dynamic in their own memory. |