During the Q&A portion of Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir: Part II screening at The Watershed in Bristol last week, an excited young filmmaker took to the mic to express her appreciation of the director’s work. She struggled to express herself or find the right words to say and, in the end, clammed up and couldn’t from a question for her idol at all. I imagine she was mortified – she was clearly inspired and overcome with nervous energy – and I’m not writing to shame her. I don’t believe I’ve ever contributed anything worthwhile or thoughtful to Q&A discussions, usually because I’m afraid of exactly that scenario: not being able to communicate the thing that a work of art has made me feel; failing to say anything original or interesting; and especially being seen to fail to communicate or be unoriginal. Basically, I don’t want to feel shame. We all have moments like the one I’m imagining this person experienced, where we make ourselves vulnerable and it doesn’t pay off. These moments are often seared onto our memory, and we will be lucky if we can let ourselves forget them.
The Souvenir: Part II is a film comprised almost entirely of moments like these. The protagonist Julie (played by the skilfully subdued Honor Swinton Byrne) is struggling to make a film about an abusive relationship that ended in the death of her partner Anthony (Tom Burke). It is film school in 1980s London, and the language of her world is lofty, elliptical, and vague – often functioning to obscure insecurity rather than connect sincerely. Richard Ayoade puts in a fantastically loud performance as an obnoxious and uncompromising student director who alienates his entire cohort - screaming “what does it make you feel!?” at his editor during one particularly hilarious scene - with his ultra-demanding style. Julie is on the other end of the directorial spectrum and demoralises her crew with her hesitant and confused instructions.
She seems desperate to render a grief that she doesn’t yet understand. Jim (Charlie Heaton), a young actor with his own buried demons, turns up at her flat one evening and they have wordless dispassionate sex. She propositions her gay editor, Max (Joe Alwyn), and is mortifyingly turned down when he reveals his sexuality. Scenes accumulate in which almost every character is desperately trying - and failing - to communicate something they don’t have the language for, whether it be verbal, physical, or visual.
For Julie, it appears that some of this failure is inherited, and you could make a solid argument for this being a film about British stoicism. While that isn’t my interpretation, many of the funniest moments occur in scenes in which Julie visits her parents William and Rosalind. James Spencer Ashworth and Tilda Swinton give quietly masterful performances as the patrician and sweet-natured root of Julie’s repression. The language of this mini world, much like that of the film school, is bankrupted by pretence and inhibition. In a brutally hilarious section, Rosalind takes a pottery class to try to get closer to her daughter and understand her creative impulse. In a moment of solipsistic depression, Julie accidentally drops and smashes her first piece (an “Estruscan” pot). “Worse things happen at sea,” William consoles.
In the metatextual ending of the film we see the way that cinematic moments are constructed for us. I was reminded of Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry, as the apparatus of the production is presented on screen (we zoom out of the scene’s action and watch the crew filming). The effect of this put me in my mind of all the social apparatus that comprises the structure of our everyday interactions. Expression is only possible in collaboration – at the very least with a viewer/reader/listener – and there are so many external forces that colour exchanges. It is an affected but profound way for the film to end, and although the lasting effect left me feeling philosophical, I cannot understate how much The Souvenir: Part II made me laugh and filled me with a euphoric joy (I haven’t even mentioned the sparse but brilliant soundtrack, which deserves its own essay). It is as much a film about shame, repression, and artmaking as it is youth, innocence, and beauty.
Like William, Hogg was generous and made the best of the audience member’s question, but truthfully all I could think about was: “this is very The Souvenir: Part II”. The completely arresting atmosphere of the film had permeated the air in the room. There was a specific sort of tension: I felt as though everybody wanted to collaborate in this discussion, to say something valuable and redemptive, but didn’t know how. I wrote in my notebook after the showing: “try to make stuff out of all your most embarrassing moments”.