New Wave Journal - Cornwall Film Festival 2022.

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This Journal Comprises 8 Reviews written by the members of the New Wave Jury 2022

NEW WAVE JURY - A group of young juries who watched and selected a winner for the International Short-Films competition at Cornwall Film Festival 2022

Name : Campbell Wood

21y

Film Student

@_caampbell

Film: Aftersun

AFTERSUN: on what seems; on what is; on what was; on learning on the job. Charlotte Wells’ first full-length feature meditates on the magic of images and their ability to preserve: experiences, realities; flurries of first times and ‘never again’s, and recontextualises these against suggestive images from the film’s present with varying success. I’ve had more than enough time to write this, but I’ve found it hard to approach. I take more joy in eulogy than critique, so let me make clear that as much as I do admire AFTERSUN’s technicality in particular--a seductively assured debut and soothing 2 hours-I didn’t really leave fulfilled. There is something to be said of the film’s usage of texture, the grain of 35mm weaved with miniDV footage, perhaps hazy,

“Cinema is a mosaic of time” - Andrei Tarkovsky

“This Be The Verse” - Phillip Larkin

wishful recollection played against literal recording. “There were rarely bad takes, but there was always something surprising in the DV footage”, Wells says. Pixelated portals; that which starts with “action” and ends with “cut” is eternal, and eternally open to new interpretation as we as people reminisce and grow. Iconography deconstructed by time. It is rare and refreshing to see such experimental visual craft find itself such mainstream resonance. For me, though, much more interesting in the moment as opposed to the film’s ambition to feed the present tense these images; the recurring rave motif didn’t really work for me, neither the Queen needle-drop (was never really a fan), maybe too grandiose, or too architectural; I think the final pan of Sophie likely would’ve done more as a punchline of sorts without the infrequent reminder that that we are building up to something. A shame, the film is genuinely charming. Despite the end-credits’ generic insistence that “any relation to real people or events is entirely fictional”, it is hard to believe something so intimately choreographed is not at least somewhat auto-fictional/biographical, and absolute catharsis.

There’s a real worldliness to AFTERSUN, not just the funny British holiday-maker staples--elusively ‘nectar of the gods’-tier Fanta Lemon, venturing to interact only with other British people, pool, the macarena-but the bravery of its pacing of a good minute or few-long balcony scene I can remember in particular, deliberate, the asleep Sophie (Frankie Corio) foregrounded against her father, the anguished Calum (Paul Mescal) on the balcony; the weight of living, of expectations. Vertov-ian “life caught unawares.” There is so much said in the unspoken. One of my favourite exchanges in the entire film: a brush of elbows on the arcade’s motorcycle game; feeling new feelings - blink and you miss it. Lullingly economical.

And yet, all that said, for me, it was lesser than the sum of its parts, somehow underbaked. There’s a lot I haven’t brought up, thematically, that either didn’t speak to me or I have nothing to speak to. It’s like turning over a log and seeing a million insects doing whatever they do. I liked it mostly as a tone poem, I suppose, the emotional beats doing more in the present on the small-scale as some ode to living than as part of some grand conclusive guttural climax.”

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells 2022)

Dark comedy at its finest and most subversive, Kristoffer Bogli’s Sick of Myself is an electrifying whirlwind of insanity that feels like a fever dream. An outlandish tale of a woman at her ugliest, most unhinged and unapologetically in her My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) era. The deadpan quality and acerbic delivery are key to the film’s humorous success.

The plot follows the turbulent struggle for attention between two equally as self-absorbed narcissists, Signe and her artist boyfriend, Thomas. Following a dog attack at her workplace, Signe is first presented as a selfless saint, coming to the rescue of this injured woman amid helpless bystanders. However, it isn’t long before we see her true narcissistic qualities as this terrible incident is nothing more than a pawn to elicit sympathy and attention from others. After weeks of humorously retelling an embellished version of her role as heroine to the attack, Signe’s saviour complex quickly fizzles out for an unbearable victim complex. With Thomas’ upcoming art show now dominating the scene, in a desperate act to put back the attention towards herself she begins to take illegal drugs that will give her a rare and serious skin disease.

Coexisting in this toxic, seesaw relationship, the pair represent the varying extremes of narcasism and are purposefully two dimensional characters to further empathise their lack of self awareness nor capability to engage with the world outside of their self-absorbed issues. Bogli uses a series of foreshadowing to subtly visualise the couple’s constant fight for the spotlight and signify who’s in current possession of the most attention. In one of the first scenes Thomas is sat at the head of the table with everyone focused on his anecdote. Fast forward slightly and Signe now sits at the head

with everyone engrossed in her retelling of the dog attack. At two different occasions of dinner with friends, both Signe and Thomas echo the same sentiment along the lines of ‘can we change the subject and talk about me now’ when their friends start to drive the conversation too much about the other’s achievement. Although simplistic, this makes for an effortlessly flowing narrative and rapid fire comedic moments.

The film’s pace works well to create the sense of chaos that is Singe’s fast and inevitable downward spiral. We are kept both entertained yet suspiciously weary of her next means of attention seeking. Caught in her web of lies, each becoming more elaborate than the next as her pursuits for attention dangerously verge on literal insanity, the line between disturbing and humorous is blurred; making for a whirlwind of entertainment viewing that feels almost sadistic. Watching Signe engage in such a deranged act as willingly digesting these pills, tunnel visioned by the dopamine hit she receives in the form of sympathy and self pity, teeters on the macabre that elicits the same uncomfortable weirdness and shock factor

as in Dogtooth (2009).

Much like how you wince through sucking the sour shell of a lollipop to get to the desired bubblegum in it’s core, as an audience we watch, through gritted teeth as Signe’s skin condition visually worsens (we have the FX and prosthetics team to thank for the horrifically realistic boils, scars and blood splatters that awaken our squeamish side when on screen) wanting to turn away in horror and disbelief yet unable to, fixated on seeing the turmoil through to the end. Just how far will this woman will self destruct for such futile moments of attention and praise?

Reminiscent of avant-garde artist Marina Abramović’s Rhythm 0 (1974) Signe’s self harm feels like a piece of performance art, navigating the levels of extremeness one is capable of going through for the sake of external gratification and superficial fulfilment. Her body becomes a metaphor also for the ugliness and unhealthiness that breeds from self obsession.

We also, from a voyeuristic distance, watch as the irreversible and damaging consequences of Signe’s absurd and dysfunctional behaviour unfold. Far enough away that we can convince ourselves that this cry for attention is far removed from anything we’d ever do. In reality, Signe performs as an Uncanny Valley; her selfish behaviour feels disturbingly familiar and comforting as we have all told white lies, painted ourselves in a more glamours light and given in to moments of impulsivity and intrusive thoughts at the expense of others. Through Signe, Bogli mirrors back to us the layering levels of vanity, toxicity, and manipulation that exist within us and invite us to laugh at the ugliest side of ourselves; our ego.

Although a satire, the film also positions itself as an important social commentary with a clear message about the destructive nature of social media’s obsession with self promotion.

Perhaps the most hilarious and poignant scene in the film is when, upon being hospitalised for her growing illness, Signe takes selfies (one flashing her bare bum peeping through the hospital gown) in the hallway’s mirror before a montage of her smoking and sunbathing in her wheelchair outside plays. Here, it is revealed that her self destructive efforts were, quite literally in vain, as she only received 58 messages and 3 visits. Once home, Thomas is ordered to take her picture (posed of course) to update her friends on her recovery; suppling her fix for attention via virtual hugs and kisses. In Signe’s world, external, rather than internal validation (so last season) provides a greater sense of fulfilment and where doing it for the gram becomes all too literal.

Nowadays, Nerve (2016) is scarily less of a fiction and more a reality as the rise of viral TikTok challenges (the black out challenge for example) has created

an epidemic of children and young adults alike that are participating in these dangerous dares in a futile pursuit of social status and online popularity. A slave to their ego and societal pressure, people’s 15 minuets of fame becomes their last as they quite literally die for attention. The film’s societal critique might have been even more effective if Signe had met a bitter end at the hand of her crazed neediness for being the centre of attention. Never the less, Sick of Myself is a unique and exciting piece of cinema that leaves a bizarre taste in your mouth and forces an inward (and much needed) reflection of how we perform for social media.

Sick Of Myself (Kristoffer Borgli 2022)

Francisco Rodrigues

21y Artist

@franxicorodrigues

Film: All The Beauty And

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed: The Call is coming from inside the house… on speaker.

Transparent, radically active, and unapologetically queer.

All the Beauty and the bloodshed is a documentary directed by Laura Poitras which follows artist Nan Goldin and P.A.I.N on their journey to expose the Sackler Family in the consequential landscape of the opioid crises in the US.

Nan Goldin is a legendary artist who explores and documents queer subcultures through photography among many other things. P.A.I.N is an advocacy organization founded by Nan Goldin herself that comprises of a group of artists, activists and people living with addiction. The organization specifically focuses on targeting the Sackler Family due to its connections to the crisis.

Walking into the festival I thought I knew what I was getting into. I was decently familiar with the artist’s work and because of it, was automatically drawn to the film. However, as the first minutes of the film rolled and I got to see on site documentation of one of the P.A.I.N’s activist attacks, it became clear that this was not just an art retrospective with some social contexts sprinkled comfortably on top (classic art world style)…it’s was far beyond it.

First and foremost a key aspect of the film is its complexity. The context is deep, and nothing is addressed shallowly. Let’s look at Goldin as an example of this. The film starts by drawing a very raw and layered view of the artist. It touches on Goldin’s personal life and how the relationship between her own family and sister shapes the artist’s understanding of the suburban American

social setting they found themselves in. These are especially vulnerable moments in the film as Goldin looks back at her sister’s journey from their house to foster care and to several institutions. There was vast nuance which strongly backed the often hard

to take in, dark subject matters of the film. Goldin departed from the distant constructed image of the artist and stepped into the complex, emotional real human behind the work.

Onto the main dish: The Sackler family. To think that the film exists merely as documentation of an institutional critique against the Sackler family would only be surface level. Time and time again the documentary moves on from that touching on family dynamics, suicide, substance abuse, the aids crisis, death etc. These moments are vital in the film not only because they relate deeply to Goldin’s life experience, but also because they stand as genuine, multifaceted portrayals of REAL people who experienced these very REAL things. The documentary is about the Sackler family and the opioid crisis but it is also about the human experience in moments of hardship.

This isn’t to say that the political context between P.A.I.N , Goldin and The Sackler family is superficially dealt within the film. It was refreshing to see effective, radical social critique. In the art world, it’s often hard

to reach true institutional critique since it is often adopted, domesticized, and rendered weak by the art world itself as it rushes to consume it. Questions around the validity/effectiveness of critique during these circumstances erupt often.

I’m reminded of this meme:

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed sheds a light of hope on this discussion because contrary to the diagram, Goldin, an artist with financial and social connections within the institution, managed to use that same connection to effectively cut the Sackler funding and influence. The call is coming from inside the house…on speaker. LOUD. This type of attitude is unheard of especially as it put Goldins entire career on the line and in risk of not being represented by these huge cultural spaces. The film successfully paints a critically eerie picture around the deep economic, philanthropic and social net systems within the artworld and how these bleed into social status and general politics. The more that is unveiled the more the film highlights how much less of a micro art world issue this is…it’s global. The documentation

of the legal process is perhaps the biggest bit of critique there is in the film. It works almost like a bare sore slice of a whole systemic issue. It made me look inward and deeply analyse the institutions around me. The Tate was mentioned in the film and Tate St Ives is just around the corner… food for thought.

All in all, All the Beauty And The Bloodshed is a great zoomed in, detailed, complex, emotional film. It’s a full course meal with many gateways to areas of interest and a varied emotional exploration of the human spirit. It adds to so many relevant discussions around queer theory and the war on drugs. A must watch for anyone and my personal favourite from the festival.

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Laura Poitras, 2022)

Andres Orella

22y Film Student

@andresorellamatilla Film: Neptune Frost

Neptune Frost - Decolonizing The Mineral, Decolonizing The Internet

A pilgrimage of visions, of song, of different vibrations. Neptune Frost is a journey which will ask you to forget the narrative conventions you know, as well as being a statement which, in utilizing its fantastic cinematography and choreography, will open your eyes to a forgotten world.

Afrofuturism is not a genre I had ever been familiar with - and a genre in which this film could potentially not solely belong to, considering its multifaceted nature. Co-directed by Saul Williams, the American rapper/poet, and Anisia Uzeyman, the Rwandan actress and playwright, both their marks are left on Neptune Frost. On one hand you have the versification of dialogue, transformed into poetry, into song; on the other hand you have the revolutionary transgression against colonization, against the exploitation of the modern age. Both of these artists leave their footprint on the African

zeitgeist, both the music and the subject matter opening our eyes to a continued form of the violation of the African continent.

Neptune Frost is a hard film to write about, but that’s what makes it so interesting. In order to better understand this film, you must leave your preconceived, Eurocentric forms of narrative at the door. Taking place in an alternate Burundi, we open with the suffering of African miners (who in the real world, as well as in this film, dig out the coltan that is used to make electronics for the first world). This is where we’re introduced to the duality of tone and rhythm of this film; dialogue becomes poetry, and poetry turns into music.

Williams and Uzeyman function on several levels throughout this film. Not only do they open our eyes to real-world problems through the story, but they do so too through form; this is why, in my reading of the film, Neptune Frost deals with decolonization in 3 separate forms and motifs: science fiction as

a genre, gender as an imposed social conceit, and a digital space that has only perpetuated the many problems facing the third world.

DECOLONIZING SCIFI

Science fiction is much more than what Hollywood and the First Cinema (referring to the cinema of the first world) have made it out to be. The possibilities of the genre are endless and unlimited, and Neptune Frost makes sure to remind us of this.

Accustomed to high-budget productions, American and European notions of the future and fantastical stories, audiences of the more privileged world will be exposed to a new image of science fiction. Williams and Uzeyman shift the focus of sci-fi from the fantastical to the real, using some of the tropes to ground the narrative. We are constantly shown characters holding and using smartphone-like devices, resembling retrofitted tamagotchis (those little cute electronic toys which were all the rave in the early 2000s, now forgotten) as if Williams and Uzeyman wanted to tell us where our un-recycled, electronic commodity waste ends up when we forget about it - the sci-fi trope of technology used to tell us about the very real problem of electronic waste precedent from Europe, North America and Australia, most often dumped in landfills in the coasts of Africa.

This motif of discarded electronics is visually apparent in Neptune Frost, where we see thrownout motherboards, laptop fans and hard drives integrated in both the set dressing of the village as well as on the costumes of the characters. It is as if, through the production design, the third world is telling the first world “you exploited us for your electronic commodity and, when that commodity becomes waste, you throw it back at us. Now look

As well as being a direct calling out of Eurocentric hypocrisy, Neptune Frost is a celebration of the genre of science fiction; as well as integrating it’s tropes with music, we are shown a different type of special effects, our eyes being so used and oversaturated by the CGI multimillionaire American productions. Yes, at times the effects look a little junky, but it was a breath of fresh air from visual perfection, that over-repeated visual motif of our modern digital world. The mineral coltan, for which so many Africans have given their lives to under colonial oppression, is presented as an omnipotent-god-like presence, the source of power of the revolutionary subversives. The ending of the film (which I won’t spoil, please go see this film if you haven’t!) shows us the colonizer in the form of a flying drone - if Darth Vader and the Empire are shown as descending, faceless, on their massive star destroyers, Neptune Frost takes this sci-fi visual trope and presents it in the terms of our real world - an American drone, armed, descending on the oppressed.

DECOLONIZING GENDER

Exploring the countryside wearing high heels on a journey of self-discovery, actor Elvis Ngabo transitions into actress Cheryl Isheja, as the duallyplayed character Neptune joins Matalusa and company in the collective village of Digitaria. Neptune Frost explores gender transition not only from a steampunk, techno-spiritual perspective, but also gives us a new and different portrayal of gender representation.

Trans representation in the First Cinema tends to be melodramatic in its nature, showcasing the many obstacles, hurdles and stigmatization the trans community has had to endure throughout the years. Struggle is a new element of the First Cinema, and historically it has been more prominent in the Third Cinema, which originated for the very purpose of showcasing and battling struggle, both individual and collective. Neptune Frost, while it still engages in dialogue with that gender struggle, creates a revolutionary space which allows for celebration of said-transition.

This celebratory nature of the film, which is aided by the rhythm and poetry, was an immersive and new experience in trans cinema for me. While I cannot claim to know the experiences of the trans community, I think this is a film that will make a whole marginalized people able to celebrate themselves for what they truly think they should be: themselves.

DECOLONIZING THE DIGITAL SPACE

In all it’s sci-fi semantics, Neptune Frost remains grounded in our real world. Along the journey of discovery, both personal and social, we are shown this world too operates on two levels; the real and the digital. Even still, Williams and Uzeyman make an effort to tell us that, even if characters seemingly operate on the real and digital planes of existence at the same time, the issues of the real world have bled (and have been perpetuated) within the digital world.

Digital spaces such as news programmes, television broadcasts and the Internet are presented as predominantly Western. I was happy to see, however, that Neptune Frost transgresses this preconceived

notion, showing the imposing presence of the third world through the allegory of hacking. Matalusa, the name given to one of the protagonists after their rebirth, continually has dreams of human forms telling him to hack into colonialism, into preconceived forms, into order. This culminates at the end when Neptune, assembled with everyone in the village, generates the biggest crash of the Internet ever seen. Western news broadcasts in the background assume Russia or China, completely disregarding the possibility of African or other third-world countries being responsible. This disregard of blame seems to represent just how ignored the third world can be. All of this results in, when it is finally traced back to Matalusa, Neptune and their group of subversives, the village being destroyed. The powerful conclusion of Neptune Frost, a visual motif practiced earlier on in the third act, is Neptune showing the middle finger to Western drones, as the Internet of the first world remains crashed. “We are here”, the Rwandan sci-fi, punk musical seems to say; “we belong to the digital space, as well as to the real world, whether you like it or not”, a visual and narrative statement aimed to franchise all of those who have been disenfranchised by the white colonial man throughout history.

I thoroughly enjoyed Neptune Frost, both in subject matter and form. It has only been in recent years that I have been involving myself in a ‘Third Cinema’, a cinema for the disenfranchised, a form of protest against the ‘First Cinema’, against the first world. It is films like this one that, by challenging and disputing all of my preconceived forms of thinking, make me want to expand my horizons even more. My only hope is that it can do that, and even more, for you.

Neptune Frost (Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman, 2022)

Lydia Jenkins

23y Filmmaker/Artist

@lydxajenkxns

Film: Company

Company is a charming, divisive short that takes audiences on what at first feels like a poignant, touching story about a mischievous boy helping a dying old woman in need – but later reveals to have been leading audiences into a trap.

On first watch, I wholly fell into the story. As I sat in the dark, I was thinking to myself how poignant the image of a will written in hurried yellow crayon would be. I sat in complete anticipation of such a reveal. The film ends with a striking image of the deceased, clutching her ‘will’ – a drawing of a Macdonald’s advert. Surrounded by her belongings, the old woman looks saintly. The production design creates two juxtaposing worlds, a colourful present outside and old woman’s home. The religious connotations contrast the commercial outside, stylistically and thematically. We truly understand that the woman’s flat is a time capsule. An altar curated throughout

a lifetime. The audience is invited to a kaleidoscope of lace and trinkets, a flash of life before our eyes; completely selling a seemingly heart-warming gesture of a little boy keeping and old woman company in her final moments..

Our anti-hero is introduced as a troublemaker from the get-go. During prayer at school, he sharpens his pencil into the jumper of another student. A quiet role, the character is parallel to a Dennis the Menace. For a rebel without a cause, an old woman asking for help – particularly one who can’t read or write –is the perfect opportunity to prove his devotion to anarchy. This is where I believe the audience becomes divided. On one hand, there are those that take his actions as the nail in the coffin for his character, but I find myself in the other camp. Maybe it’s the huge glasses, or the wit of this whole film, either way, I am won over by this rascal (or villain, depending on where you stand.)

However, the film doesn’t take itself too seriously. Flying in the face of pretentiousness, the film plays

with the expectations of film festival audiences. The humour is coupled with expert visuals. Which is why, in my opinion, the twist ending is executed so well. Utilising ‘arthouse’ aesthetics that popularised international short film genre. From the young boy waiting at the bus stop to the final shot of the old woman, the cinematography screams all the subtlety and craft of a drama short. This complete misdirect delivers the punchline at full force, unexpected and entirely funny. Yet the film still upholds its commentary on themes such as tradition, modernity and consumerism. It goes unnoticed the comparison of consumerism Goliath MacDonald’s to religion. In itself, the Macdonald’s logo is internationally recognised, working across boundaries of languages and culture. Throughout the 50’s to the present, there is a social and cultural shift dictated by this new religion – consumerism. Company is set in this cross roads of these two religions.

Exemplar filmmaking that has mastered the art of leading audiences along, this short film is enjoyable from the beginning to the end. Totally unique, disruptive and with some cheekiness, Company was certainly up there as one of the best shorts of this year’s Cornwall Film Festival programme.

Company (Ilnaz Khirkhah 2022)

Evie Townend 24y Journalist

@townend_evie

Film: Aftersun

Aftersun: a holiday that is as haunting as it is beautiful

The smell of aftersun lotion is one of life’s rare time capsules, transporting you backwards into a bygone memory. A scent so distinct that you can almost feel the cool sting of aloe vera on pink skin- a lingering mix of pain, soothing and nostalgia. These sentiments make ‘Aftersun’ an appropriate title for Scottish director Charlotte Wells’ feature debut. Delicately stitching together camcorder footage with direct shots of a father-daughter package trip to Turkey, it renders past and present inextricable as short scenes reveal the daughter- now grown uplooking back at a childhood holiday that was made incomprehensible by the unimaginable events that followed.

Newcomer, Francesca Corio, is impressively multi-dimensional in her performance of Sophie. Perceptive beyond her years, the 11-yearold’s mature humour and oozing self-assurance

brightens her father’s more distant personna. With her sharp turn-a-phrase and teasing comebacks, she has a coolness that other pre-teens can only dream of. Best highlighted by their goofy, selfrecorded footage, she has a natural rapport with her young father, Callum, who is played by Normal People star Paul Mescal, despite living predominantly with her mother. So close in age that they are easily confused for siblings, this immediately adds a depth and context to both characters as the audience questions what it must have been like to become a father so young, or be raised by someone who is barely an adult themselves.

Scenes gently pass between the hotel room, day excursions and a poolside resort, distorting the week-long time period to create an all-consuming, rose-hued world with an iconic 90s aesthetic. This is intrusively contrasted with intermittent clips of Callum dancing in a rave- an unnerving overload of strobe lights to a crescendo of Under Pressure. A figure is watching him, which, over the course of the clips, is revealed to be adult Sophie.Wells continues

to create a sense of suspense by smoothly rolling the shot away from the characters and onto their reflections in a window or TV screen. This creates an ominous impression of seeing only jigsaw parts of a whole- the inaccessible past that exists beyond Sophie’s fragmented memory.

As the film unfolds, clues become increasingly clear that Callum is plagued by his own inner demons, tentatively held at bay by meditation, tai chi and his doting adoration for Sophie. However, these hints are demonstrated in everything other than Paul Mescal’s acting, which is far more opaque, neutral and difficult to discern. Dialogue often dissolves into silences that shapeshift from peace and care to tension and encroaching emptiness. The naturalistic script enchantingly captures the ebb-and-flow of conversation and the shifting moods that come from spending long hours with just one person and becoming, at points, crushed by the weight of pressure to enjoy yourself.

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells 2022)

Jake

T. Waters

Film: Empire of Light

EMPIRE OF LIGHT

Empire of Light centres around the Empire Cinema and the lives of its employees in the 1980’s. We are introduced to characters such as Hilary, Mr Ellis and Norman, who all represent the ageing vintage the Empire cinema has to offer. There are also the younger characters: Stephen, Janine and Neil, who represent the next generation. The narrative explores such aesthetics as the golden age of cinema, 1920’s art deco and rural sea side life in the 1980’s. Mendes clearly intended to pay tribute to cinema and its heritage. However, as a story, it is very unclear as to what its deeper point was. The film feels like a passion project for Mendes, yet it doesn’t seem to be any more than a cathartic exercise.

With a star-studded cast, Olivia Coleman, Colin Firth and Toby Jones, the audience is treated to nuanced performances and believable characters. This aside, Mendes’ writing for the characters does not deliver

in terms of positive representation. Mental health and Racism are two big themes addressed in the film.

At the beginning of the film, our protagonist Hilary is depressed and seems to struggle with finding any sort of happiness or excitement. This however changes when Stephen is introduced to the story; he’s energetic and aware of his passions, and shares this with Hilary. As the story unfolds, Hilary’s schizophrenia becomes apparent. Although there isn’t a huge catalogue of films addressing schizophrenia directly, there are many that deal with mental health. A positive representation would be if the character’s mental health issues were shown as a part of their identity, being celebrated as part of their character. As evidenced in Finding Nemo; Nemo has a deformed fin to which he and his dad refer to as his lucky fin. Schizophrenia isn’t made to be part of Hilary’s identity, it’s portrayed to be the problem in the narrative and in her relationship with Stephen.

Stephen’s character also represents the racial undertone. He is a young black male and is subject to name calling, social ridicule and even physical assault. The representation of racism is an important one to address, and Mendes unfortunately addresses it poorly. It is clear through the design of Stephen’s character that Mendes has tried to understand and represent what racism feels like, however, it lacks authenticity. There is a growing number of features and shorts that include the topic of racism, most of which come from grass root experiences. It almost feels disrespectful for a white man to attempt to cover an area with such deep discrimination. It damages a key theme within the story and this alone illustrates the agenda and mindset of the UK filmmaking industry.

Mendes’ use of time and place also illustrates his intended audience. As the film is set in the 1980’s, the audience who lived through this era will instantly find a nostalgic atmosphere within their experience. With numerous references to films at the time, the audience intended would be less likely to be conscious of the problematic representations previously mentioned. He himself being a middle-aged white male making a cathartic love letter to the golden age of cinema evidences the lack of awareness that is arguably needed when including such themes as mental health and racism.

To conclude, the problematic use of the themes discussed highlights the current attitude within the UK film industry from directors such as Sam Mendes.

Empire of Light (Sam Mendes2022)

Andrew Brierley 24y Filmmaker @andrewjbrierley

Film: Sick Of Myself

SICK OF MYSELF

Norwegian writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s new dark comedy Sick of Myself is – alongside this year’s Banshees of Inisherin – one of the funniest films I’ve watched within the last few years. It manages to be both deeply unsettling and rich in humour. A film that poignantly speaks to humanity’s desperation for attention and likeability at any cost.

The story is about a young woman, Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp), whose partner Thomas (Eirik Sæther) is an aspiring artist slowly rising in fame. From the get-go, we know that the relationship is problematic and Signe feels deeply insecure. Signe believes that she is less selfish than Thomas, as she works at a cafe and claims she was the only person who tried to help a bleeding customer. But from the perspective of the audience, we know that what she says isn’t necessarily true.

When she discovers an online article about harmful medication being sold in Russia, known as Lidexol, she manages to get a hold of it and consumes them on tap. She ultimately ends up with a hideous skin condition, which she uses to promote herself and to compete with her boyfriend’s growing success. However, when her condition worsens, will she realise the consequences of her narcissism?

This film was my introduction to Kristoffer Borgli. After watching this film, I discovered his previous work, in which there are thematic connections weaved throughout that are present in his new feature. His humour is unique in that it is darkly funny and pure strange, with characters that are untrustworthy, but intriguing and complex. His films are meant to make you feel uncomfortable and critique society’s media-induced illness, and nowhere is this more poignant than in Sick of Myself.

When Signe uses her skin condition to gain public attention, her partner Thomas feels threatened. It unravels more layers to their already hollow relationship. For instance, when Thomas visits Signe in hospital, his first question is “it’s not contagious,

right?”, or when Signe is upset that her story isn’t top headline news, he’s pleased his furniture isn’t in shot. The first time we even see the couple in bed together is after she gets the condition, to showcase how minimal their chemistry was beforehand.

Both leading performances from Kristine Kujath Thorp and Eirik Sæther are phenomenal, managing to convey heightened emotions, whilst being relatable. Their comedic timing is on point, making them consistently engaging despite their awkward, competitive kinship. Kujath Thorp never villainises her character, showcasing her vulnerability contrasted by her vaulting ambition (beautifully masked by her deceptive humility).

The editing is superb, as it disorients the viewer by making us feel like the protagonist. We’re offered an insight into Signe’s fantasies, which blend with reality – making the audience unable to distinguish between the two. Borgli’s cinematic storytelling intelligently manipulates the audience to question their perspective of truth, making us feel more distant from Signe’s wavering humanity. Yet by the end, the viewer is able to sympathise with her despite her lies and horrendous decision-making. Another excellent use of editing is the montage where Signe endlessly consumes the Lidexol tablets – showing through constant cuts how overwhelmed she feels.

Even though the film is sold as a comedy-drama, there is also a lot about it that treads into the realms of horror – particularly through the use of music and make-up prosthetics. This compliments the uncomfortable situation we find the characters in and perfectly balances with the comedy. As with Borgli’s use of prosthetics in his 2021 short Eer, this film manages to depict the human body in an obscure, cringe-inducing manner, gradually worsening during the run-time.

Whilst watching the film, I drew comparisons between this and Martin Scorsese’s 1982 film ‘The King of Comedy’. Both films deal with the subject matter of loneliness and attention seeking. Sick of Myself feels more in touch with how we perceive celebrity culture, as fame is more accessible and more ingrained into people’s mindsets – becoming more detrimental to our mental health.

I feel privileged to have watched this film at Cornwall Film Festival before wide release. I would highly recommend people to see Sick of Myself, as it is relevant for current discourse on mental health and media influence. It offers a glimpse of how even the most problematic people can be depicted an empathetic, poetic light.

Sick Of Myself (Kristoffer Borgli 2022)