THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER
THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER
Features

The Eternal Daughter

Joanna Hogg
United Kingdom 2022
96 min
V'22

After her ambitious, expansive diptych THE SOUVENIR, Joanna Hogg returns to the smaller canvas of her earlier films UNRELATED and ARCHIPELAGO – and if anything, in more intimate mode. The film is at once a two-hander and a solo showcase, since Tilda Swinton is playing both a film-maker, Julie, and her elderly mother, Rosalind. The two, accompanied by dog Louis, are visiting a country house hotel in Wales in midwinter. Julie is hoping that the visit will yield material for a project, as she delves into the past and into her relationship with her mother; meanwhile, the film itself explores the myths and the visual language of the British ghost story tradition, both in film (e.g. THE INNOCENTS) and in literature (M.R. James).
Deeply atmospheric, with Ed Rutherford’s chilly photography and with soundtrack extracts from Bartok, this is nevertheless also an emotionally warm film, in the tenderness visible beneath the cautious reserve of the mother-daughter conversations. After the quasi-autobiographical THE SOUVENIR, in which Swinton essentially played a version of Joanna Hogg’s mother, the actor’s subtle performance adds an uncanny new dimension to her own filmography, and to this director’s remarkable oeuvre. (Jonathan Romney)

In the presence of Joanna Hogg.

Joanna Hogg: CAPRICE (1986, K), LONDON BRIDGE (1995–1999, TV- Serie), EASTENDERS: DOT’S STORY (2003, TV), UNRELATED (2007), ARCHIPELAGO (2010), EXHIBITION (2013), THE SOUVENIR (2019), THE SOUVENIR II (2021)

Credits
  • Tilda Swinton
  • Joseph Mydell
  • Carly-Sophia Davies
  • Joanna Hogg
  • Ed Rutherford
  • Helle le Fevre
  • Stéphane Collonge
  • Grace Snell
Element Pictures, A24 Films

A24 Films

DCP
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