Hot take: The Souvenir

‘The Souvenir’ is a semi-autobiographical story of a young, privileged woman setting out to find her voice as a filmmaker, who gets into an ill-fated relationship with an older man. Cinematographer David Raedeker frames this coming-of-age tale in wide, lingering shots given a grainy 80s redux film like quality, transporting us back in time. Director Joanna Hogg interweaves sparse drama, poetic voiceovers, keenly observed vignettes and musical interludes to the same effect. In keeping with the understatement that defines European auteur cinema, the dramatic plot points are hinted at but left to be inferred.

Honor Swinton Byrne is a revelation: with slight twitches of her face she conveys the awkwardness and naïveté of a young girl with an almost perverse need to chase experience. Frankie Wilson plays the rakish older man reasonably well, giving us glimpses of the broken man underneath. Tilda Swinton as the concerned mother towers with presence in the few scenes where she appears: indeed it seems like the anxieties of the younger woman are inherited from the older, making for an astute psychological insight. Although we do not get much interiority from the two main characters, the magnetic pull of this formative relationship comes searing through. The meta-reflections on film and sequences in the film school are less effective, dragging the proceedings considerably and leading to a fairly indulgent last half hour that tests your patience.

Even so, 'The Souvenir' is compelling as a meditation on the act of remembering. The protagonist is often filmed behind a lens watching the proceedings, reflected in a mirror, blurred to appear double or placed parallel in the frame to her older lover. Memory fractures and fragments our experience and so the lens does the same. Often in moments of high drama the camera focuses on a stray detail: the embossing on a train window, the tassels of a turban on the man that you love, the swish of a train on walking into an opera house—when the years pass and pain recedes, we are often left with impressions such as these. Early in the film, the male protagonist says “we want to see life not as it is, but as it is experienced”, which the director seems to have taken to heart.

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Romance

Language: English

Runtime: 2h

Year of release: 2019

Streaming Platform: N/A

Hot take is a series in which I offer my first impressions of films from India and around the world.