Archipelago Reviews

In Archipelago we have an upper middle class mother, her adult son and daughter on holiday on one of the Scilly Isles (mildest part of British isles, off England’s South West coast), as a send-off for the son’s forthcoming time, away from his girlfriend, as a volunteer in Africa. They have arranged for a live-in cook, and the mother is taking painting lessons. It soon transpires not all is so rosy in the (very pretty) gardens as might first appear. The mother and daughter are ill at ease with inviting the cook to join them in meals, and relationships are proving testy. In one excruciating scene the daughter, following a great struggle deciding on the seating arrangements, complains about the food to a restaurant waitress and chef, much to the embarrassment of the others. There are other scenes of silence and repressed emotions, which inevitably must come to a head and involve the absent father, who apparently is something of a bristly shooting type and who disapproves of the thoughtful vegetarian son’s lack of resolve and due sense of career responsibility (an opinion shared by the daughter).

This all may sound painful viewing and too close to middle class English stereotypes, but it’s lifted by the performances, the setting, the shots of landscape and quiet observational style, with limited close ups, contemplative pacing and stillness, sense of off screen-space with shots of empty rooms, stairs and doorways, and the sound of birdsong. However awkward the characters’ repression and silences, i didn’t want it to end. The film may be indebted to, or at least brought to mind Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy, along with Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, Bergman’s Persona, also Rohmer, Ozu, Bresson and with its pheasant shoot even Renoir’s Rules of the Game. Whatever the influences, director and writer Joanna Hogg has still made something her own and (even with the lush almost Mediterranean or sub-tropical vegetation) very British of the material, clearly as at home with the characters as with the sometimes wild, windy weather. The film seems to me to transcend caricature, offering wise insights and hints of satirical bite along the way.

I understand Hogg’s previous film Unrelated, set in Tuscany and involving another (sunnier) middle-class holiday, was well thought of. I look forward to more films by her and it will be interesting to see how far her repertoire expands

Archipelago is exceptionally well-shot, very well-acted, and filmed with such realism that you could be watching a documentary. It has so much potential, in fact, that I would like to gush about it for the entirety of this review. The catch? The pace is so lethargic that it might put you to sleep if you're not careful.

I know, I know. You've heard this all before. 'OMG! This movie is so BORING. I almost fell asleep. Zzzzz LMAO!' But I can assure you, I am not one of those people who needs Michael Bay CGI masturbation to be entertained. I like drama. I like independent filmmaking.

But a film needs to have a hook. A family disintegrating is not a hook. As you and I both know, there are so many depictions of movie families disintegrating that the depiction of the disintegration itself has become a rather ho-hum affair.

Not to say this movie is a completely tepid experience. It's a good three-star movie, well acted, with a very likable performance from Tom Hiddleston (best known as the villainous Loki from Thor and The Avengers) as Edward, an awkward but good-hearted philanthropist. Kate Fahy (the bed-ridden matriarch in The Living and the Dead) plays Edward's mother, Patricia, stretched taut by the strain of her absent husband.

But it is Lydia Leonard (the older sister, Cynthia) who provides the most intense expression of grief and anger half-way through the movie, breaking this serious British family's self-imposed silence.. Cynthia, pushy and nerve-janglingly neurotic reminds me of some of my family, that person who turns a gathering into a familial Hell with their unique combination of anxiety and blame-placing.

But even at one hour forty-nine minutes, this film needs some serious editing. Long conversations meander and go nowhere in particular; scenes of nothing in particular go on entirely too long. This would be okay if these scenes served a purpose, but honestly, I'm not sure they do. They serve as filler, while the film attempts to fulfill its ambitions of high drama.

Now, I'm not telling you whether or not to watch this movie (unlike others, which I would tell you most emphatically to avoid). There is the problem of the slowness, the long, lingering scenes, and the technical issue of the scenes being shot from too far away to see anybody. But, do you know what? That's fine, because Archipelago invokes reality in a way few films do.

And if you're a Thor fan seeking out films with Tom Hiddleston, you might be disappointed, as no Norse Gods come crashing to earth and no epic battles are waged. And Tom isn't trying to destroy the world, just improve it in some small way. And maybe in this context, that is enough.