In the opening of The Souvenir, we are gifted some black and white footage of Sunderland, a northern English city, as Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne – daughter of Tilda, who plays her mother here) tells someone that she wants to make a movie about a boy and his tight relationship with his mother. In 1980s Knightsbridge, Julie will utter the same ambitious words to Anthony (Tom Burke), an older, charismatic toff – and it is this volatile relationship, rather than filmmaking, that The Souvenir is primarily atoned to.
Written and directed by Joanna Hogg, The Souvenir does utilize the process of art to allow her characters to breathe. Both thought processes and in the construction of making a film itself. Julie is a film student, looking to make her first film, somehow with conflicting notions on just how much of our self might go into such creative projects.
It’s fair to say that this is a largely auto-biographical account of Hogg’s own young days as an aspiring pupil of film. Certainly the reflective tone and backdrop of art and privilege in The Souvenir caters to this. British cinema has a vacant spot for such personal, self-aware film narratives – like Unrelated; like Archipelago; like Exhibition – but we still don’t know where exactly Joanna Hogg fits in. Is that a bad thing?
For me, and no doubt countless others, The Souvenir earned some of my investment through those more accessible scenes. Like the lecturer showing the students a video of an audition, which somehow gave me nostalgic waves of my own education. Those nervous early days, when there are strangers all around, but there’s an abstract exhilaration in the potential for learning. But also, those little niggling of Do I really belong here?
When Julie meets Anthony, there’s a scene they get-to-know-each-other. One which tells us a lot about both characters, even though it is pretty much through the articulation of Tom. He is almost challenging Julie, determining what we want to see in a film, and the depiction of reality. And the question of whether you should base creativity on your own experiences emerges on the first of many occasions.
Does Julie know what angle she wants her film to come from? Is Tom antagonizing her, or giving her advice? These notions of biographical cinema, no matter to what extent, may also seem familiar to us watching, no matter our background or class, on the discussion of film. “I am a big fan of Powell and Pressburger.” Tom adds. Julie is content just to listen for the moment, we’re not sure if she is trying to figure him out or lap up the fortitude.
The Souvenir depicts this destructive relationship with tender hands from Hogg. Not to say there is not a lot of coarse friction running through it. Tom is relatively encouraging of Julie’s goals as a potential filmmaker, even if he has a round-about way of doing it. His temperament is aided by the fact he works at the Foreign Office, dashes off at short notice, yet still asks Julie if he can borrow money. The suspicions outweigh the optimism.
It takes a straight-talking friend of Anthony’s, played Richard Ayoade, to give Julie some perspective amidst her current naivety. Once he has philosophized about how telling someone how to make a film is like telling them how to breathe, that there are no rules, he has Julie’s attention. When he questions quite openly how she can be a harmonious fit with a heroin addict, Julie tries to hide the fact this information is alarming brand new.
Even in an earlier scene, when Julie discovers the needle marks on Tom’s arm, he maintains such a relaxed poise. She assumes he has just hurt himself, and he goes along with that. He either cares not about the revelation, or naturally surmounts that she just won’t connect the dots at this time. His kind of pretentious aura and nitpicking are not wholly transparent, but are perceived genuinely without any bad intent through his often aloof dark British wit and charm. But still.
The ambiguity of the film, as well as its languid pacing, might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Scenes move slowly, but appear to be quick to transition. One dinner scene, where there’s a clear difference of opinion during a discussion on the conflicts at the time – including the Troubles in Northern Ireland – is engaging, then cuts away to a serene walk in the countryside. Hogg distracts your natural urge to reflect or dwell, showing once again these snippets of life are more instrumental for her than any connotations of dialogue context.
When Tom casually informs Julie that he also took a former girlfriend to Venice, who was mad with jealousy and jumped in a canal, you’re not even sure if he is telling the actual tale or taking the piss. That either works or it doesn’t. It certainly fits the disarming inflection of their relationship thus far. Hogg’s use of music is more of a coherent story-teller at times. Two songs in two different scenes of Julie looking at her own film footage – one sings about a shipbuilding town; the other ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?’ by Joe Jackson. Doesn’t get more apt than that.
Like the music, Hogg is terribly interested in surrounding you with the authentic decor and lifestyle, not just the characters within it. The camera seems to hover, yet keep its distance. The conversing is mannered and rigid, while there is little intimacy. Even with all these brittle strands and shards, the film still has such a clear social blueprint of viewpoints of wealth and class. I suspect Whit Stillman would enjoy this a whole lot more than many.
So Joanna Hogg herself is striving for personal authenticity. Which means it is not a criticism to assume that much of what is expressed through the film are scenes based on the filmmaker’s memories. One that offer much to how Hogg wants to speak to those of us who want to listen rather that what essentially would titillate the masses. In an early scene, Julie and Anthony express their alternate views on the painting, “The Souvenir”, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Joanna Hogg’s own display of artistic expression is always understandably going to garner varied opinions and interpretations. Whether a kind of visual scrapbook or souvenir for the filmmaker, there’s no dishonor in personal reflection coming before film food for her audience.
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