Archipelago (2010)

I suppose the budget of Archipelago is not of a millions-and-millions dollar scope, as this is a film in which locations are few, and no particular special effects are used. In other words: it's a simple film, with a simple plot - but that is also why I loved it. Joanna Hogg may not be Ozu, but she sure has a good eye for familial conflicts of the kind that grow and grow, often in a way that is not acknowledged by anyone. A family of three goes to an island to have a vacation. They hire a house and even a maid to fix dinner for them. From the get-go, there is tension in the air. The son is irritated that his girlfriend couldn't come. He is angered by the other family memeber's treatment of the maid. The mother and the sister treats the son as somebody who should get a grip, get "realistic". A never-endeing sadness in how these people are alienated from each other, and how they hide out in their own rooms. We see these tensions in small details, in the way things are discussed or the way discussions are broken in silence. In one scene, we see the family gathered at a restaurant dinner. The sister starts to make a fuss about the soup, and the situation immediately gets excruciating. Gradually, the conflicts get grittier, but there are never any big revelations or anything of that kind. What we have is simply people with certain difficulties in relation to each other. Hogg is not the kind of director that hunts down big drama. Archipelago has the feel of a Mike Leigh or Kore-Eda movie; understated, yet clear (and very English, the upper-class people who shoot partridges on the island included). Locations are used to great effect, making this into much more than just a dark family tale: no details seem superfluous. There is no atmospheric music, no lavish outbursts. It's a film in which ordinary things as the meek, cold sunshine is used to great effect. Hogg knows her medium, no doubt about it. I look forward to her next films.