Apart from prose poetry, there is nothing else in the barren land
This review may contain spoilers
Author: pASslosS
In the list of films released online in March, "Open Heart World" is particularly noteworthy - it was not only shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Venice Film Festival, but also won the Queer Lion Award.
However, the audience's expectations for the film do not stop there.
In addition to the dual identity of Oscar-winning cassie Affleck as a "producer + actor", the main cast also includes Catherine Waterston of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", and Vanessa Kirby, who won venice with the feminist masterpiece "Fragments of Women" of the same period.
The story takes place in Upstate New York in 1856, which is depicted in the film as an isolated claustrophobic place. A cabin enclosed in snow and ice lingered on the screen for a few seconds, and Abigail couldn't sleep.
"The pride is almost gone, the hope is slim, and we have ushered in the New Year."
On the first day of the new year, Abigail described her observations in a listless tone. A few months ago, her young daughter died of diphtheria, a trauma that was enough to break a family.
She and her husband, Daiya, sat at opposite ends of the table, eating cooked potatoes without a word. This scene is reminiscent of the sinister black and white tones of "The Horse of Turin", where life seems to have dried up and regressed to the primitive state of "survival".
To add, the film is based on Jim Shepard's short story, and the impetus that prompted the original author to write this short story was a snowstorm in Upstate New York in 1856. While browsing the local farmer's diaries, he found a note that read:
"My best friend moved away and I don't think I'll see her again." This note became the origin of the story, and at the same time decided that it would be a story with the characters' self-narration as the axis.
In the film, Abigail writes endlessly while toiling, which is the only way she expresses her inner life.
In February, Upstate New York came out of the bitter cold, and no one could have predicted that it would be torn apart by screaming snowstorms and savage fires.
When Abigail first saw Tully, their eyes were already filled with frank dependence.
Abigail is a penitent contemplator who sees the world as an umbrella of ink and imagination, while Tully, her whole body is uplifted, her cheeks are rosy, and her hair is loosely spread in the air. She was very direct and had no habit of being driven by imagination.
Abigail and Tully create a space far from the established life, and their men are also shelved outside.
They share experiences about family, farm work, children, childhood and regrets, and occasionally stay by the campfire without saying a word or simply speaking incoherently.
There is a scene where they wring out steaming clothes together in the sun, and the emotion has been externalized into a golden scene.
Love is as precious as the setting sun, and they fall in love. But there was no template that told them what kind of emotion it was.
One of the most successful aspects of Open Hearts is that the spark between Abigail and Tully is in effect. Shy smiles and immovable glances, touching fingers, massaged caresses, awkward kisses...
Their intimacy is based on the director's delicate insight into the emotions of the body, as well as the vibrant clumsiness and childlike joy of the lovers with each other.
When love came, Abigail leaned back on the bench by the table, his arms completely relaxed and stretched out.
Astonishment and joy. Astonishment and joy. Astonishment and joy.
She became a pioneer of her own emotions, faithful to the manifestation of true desires.
Looking back at past same-sex films, in fact, the most commonly used to highlight it is the "shame" that arises from the awareness of same-sex desires. However, "Open Heart World" abandons similar psychological constructions, only allows them to fall into emotion, and postpones the love that is doomed to die as much as possible.
So this film is both sensual and modern. Although the Romanian filming location gives the film a barren tone, after watching it, I still have to ask, are these farmers living in the 19th century really so open that they can clearly express their inner feelings and be honest about almost forbidden desires.
And these two points alone are difficult for even me, a modern person, to do.
However, the foundation of "Open Heart World" is still a classic love story, and in the tradition of heterosexual movies, this model has been tried too many times, in fact, it is somewhat unchallenging.
Coincidentally, "Open Heart World" and "Ammonite" are both films based on the theme of 19th century lesbians, which shows that whether it is a real story or a fictional story, in recent years, filmmakers have frequently intercepted/portrayed "lesbian love stories" from history, and have unconsciously created new safety zones.
The gold standard is naturally Portrait of a Burning Woman, revolving around ammonite and Eliza and Marcella, Tell the Bee, Weta and Virginia, and Crazy Nights with Emily.
These epochal lesbian films have a common theme, which is to invent "love" in a time and space without an emotional paradigm.
Back to the film, in fact, in addition to Abigail and Tully, the two male characters are also worth playing.
Finney records Tully's every move, where his wife went, how long she stayed, whether she did housework, whether she would give him children, whether she cheated...
It's a male character tied to religious and patriarchal traditions, and the devil incarnate we often see in other films.
His cruelty to his wife stems from the way he treats women. The film does not deliberately highlight whether he murdered Tully because she was in love with a woman, but it is conceivable that if Tully fell in love with another man, the ending would probably be the same.
But Daia, played by Cassie Affleck, has an incredible arc of character. He always spoke in a hoarse and hurt voice (Cassie Affleck's own skills). Compared to Finney, who tries to control Tully, the character of Dea jumps out of the established frame.
At the end of the film, the audience can glimpse the human side from Deia. He showed no signs of insanity or blackmailed his wife. Abigail and Dea are allies who persevere to the end in the face of tragedy.
Indeed, Daiya is a person with limited ability to express emotions. For Abigail, his distance from Tully was like the distance between a sewing box and an atlas. But he was still able to bury his longing in his heart and find a way to save himself through Abigail's feelings for Tully.
On the other hand, his question to Abigail explores the limits of man, a kind of "powerlessness." Abigail's memories of Tully's self-hatred for incompetence, and their daughter, are similar pains.
But in fact, Open Hearts almost collapsed due to an obvious flaw.
Audiences hear most of the voiceover. It is based on a novel text, and while calm and vivid, the over-reliance on voiceover almost touches the taboo of cinema as an art form.
Even more deadly, these voiceovers are complex and profoundly literary. When we come up with a single line, we will find that it is already full enough, so in order to give way to this fullness, the weakening of the audiovisual is inevitable.
It can be said that the charm of this film comes from the text, and the shackles also come from the text. As they read beautiful and delicate lines in the woods, the characters seem to have withdrawn from the everyday. But in order to experience such pure romance and poetry, I persuaded myself to fit into this elevated aesthetic, and I accepted it without any obstacles.
But amazingly, in many moments, voiceover not only does not become a problem, but creates a new harmony. The poetic language of prose becomes the "engine of atmosphere", and the director creates new audiovisual structures around the text, editing, photography, sound and elements of the times... They convert the collocation scheme to flow forward to equilibrium.
So it's not that a film can't have voiceovers, it's about using voiceovers creatively.
The voiceover in the film is more often present as the character's unspeakable voice or secret. And because of its calm tone, the emotional function is transferred to other audiovisual elements. The director said that the recording of the narration was almost a secondary creation of the film.
Impressive visual scenes are also present, as photographer André Chemetoff captured in this dizzying snowstorm.
Many of the interior shots in the film are inspired by 19th-century paintings, including by the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershoi. The atmosphere of the film's exterior is reminiscent of the painter John Singer Sargent.
Of course, the hardest element of the film to ignore is the music, which is the truly indispensable part of the film. Daniel Bramberg, who played the score, had already composed music before it started. He was involved in the film's filming process, drawing inspiration from the natural environment and consciously constructing scenes around voiceover.
The tracks in the soundtrack of this film are very clear, almost a musical version of the intimate diary.
The trembling of the wooden floor, the hissing animals, the shaking of cowbells, the whistling of the wind... Pulling emotions with melodious jazz melodies and bridging anxiety and challenge with experimental notes, just as the blizzard abstracted by sound and the flames screaming in the wind are so compatible. After watching the movie, listen to the soundtrack again, and the scene will come to mind with precision.
Although "Open Heart World" has rich and complex elements, it is almost the opposite of "Portrait of a Burning Woman". The latter's director, Serene Sienma, is very restrained in the use of the soundtrack, and the deliberately created blank space successfully sublimates the few melodies in the whole film.
But we can see another scenario in Open Hearts. The voiceover and music that dominate the film are able to communicate. They walk on a one-way line, and they transform into different forms of prose poetry.
As the artist Laurie Anderson tried in her music, she combined language with music, which contains musicality and literature in music. She made a prose film, Dog Heart, which is also full of narration and melody, but harmonious and charming.
If "Open The Heart World" is a tune, then the film's use of rests is also interesting.
Daia's sudden appearance has interrupted Abigail's fantasies twice, once through the abrupt stop of music to wake Abigail from love, and once at the end of the film, Abigail holds Tully, recalling the skin kiss buried in the diary, but the picture ends and everything returns to reality.
At the end of the day, a diary is an illusion, and an atlas is an extension of fantasy.
Words peer into their own hearts, but also spy on lovers in the distance. Abigail's emotionally rich prose poems hide cowardice, and her bravery rests on the enjoyment of pleasure, but is powerless to save. Just as she once sneaked up near Tully's house and used a telescope in the corner to zoom in on Tully's figure.
Abigail is a bird that sings in a cage and is also a bird that survives in a cage. But that's about it.
What can the words in the diary bring? In fact, in an isolated environment, the only variable is imagination. Imagination can be used to kill itself, but it can also be a form of healing. It is a methodology for understanding the proposition of "being".
The only thing one can escape is imagination, as Finney can escape.
But the only thing one can use to save oneself is the imagination, as Abigail can do.
In the film, the dead daughter and the dead Tully uncover the bloody truth that "old fears always replace new fears."
The pain of life is constantly renewed, new soil is waiting to dry up, and urges the attachment and tenacity in emotion to be more compacted. Overall, Open Heart World is a film that has not disappointed, and has great advantages in terms of atmosphere, audiovisual language and emotional tension. When you look at it, it's like experiencing a vacuous downpour.