The Sou­venir

Since her 2007 debut fea­ture Unre­lat­ed, Joan­na Hogg has built a rep­u­ta­tion for her well-met explo­rations of feck­less upper ech­e­lon ennui – come­di­an Stew­art Lee, in one of his stand-up shows, described her 2010 fam­i­ly dra­ma Arch­i­pel­ago as ​“an art film about mid­dle-class peo­ple on a dis­ap­point­ing hol­i­day”. On the sur­face these films seem omi­nous­ly spe­cif­ic, relat­ing to the unique prob­lems of the qui­et­ly com­fort­able, but Hogg’s gift as a film­mak­er and sto­ry­teller is how these inti­mate sce­nar­ios – wry inspec­tions of how the oth­er half live – deal as much in the abstract as they do in objec­tive reality.

From a viewer’s per­spec­tive, The Sou­venir feels like her most ambi­tious project to date, con­ceived as a pair of films (Part Two is set to reach us in 2020) con­cern­ing Hogg’s own time at film school in the 1980s, and a per­son­al rela­tion­ship she expe­ri­enced. Draw­ing on her own mem­o­ries, she casts new­com­er Hon­or Swin­ton Byrne (daugh­ter of Til­da) as Julie, her avatar, a waifish film stu­dent with an agree­able nature and lit­tle con­cept of the world beyond her own window.

Julie, with her flat in Knights­bridge and well-to-do par­ents in their coun­try pile, is unmis­tak­ably an emblem of priv­i­lege, often bliss­ful­ly unaware of her own good for­tune. At the film’s open­ing, she describes her idea for a nar­ra­tive fea­ture set in the ship­yards of Sun­der­land, focussing on the rela­tion­ship between a work­ing class boy and his moth­er. ​“I want to not live my life in this priv­i­leged bub­ble,” she says, but she calls Mum­my the instant she needs mon­ey, she indulges in lav­ish din­ners at the Grand Hotel. Julie – wispy, ethe­re­al Julie – is a por­trait of the artist as a young woman, wide-eyed and, thus far, most­ly shield­ed from the hor­rors of life’s rich pageant.

So it sneaks in, through men­tions of the ongo­ing con­flict in North­ern Ire­land and the Chelsea Bar­racks bomb­ing of 10 Octo­ber 1981, but Julie expe­ri­ences much of her life either behind a cam­era or a pane of glass. Enter Antho­ny (Tom Burke), a charm­ing civ­il ser­vant and for­mer sol­dier. He is a world­ly crea­ture. When he saun­ters into the house par­ty Julie is host­ing, our hero­ine is enchant­ed from the off. Their courtship is del­i­cate, as Antho­ny trav­els for his for­eign office job while Julie set­tles into her edu­ca­tion at film school, but it builds to a tow­er­ing crescen­do, where noble roman­tic delu­sions are shat­tered by vicious reality.

Burke and Swin­ton Byrne’s pierc­ing per­for­mances are the film’s crown­ing glo­ry – their nat­ur­al chem­istry is the beat­ing heart of The Sou­venir. Hogg’s deci­sion to with­hold plot details from her cast, and in the case of the lat­ter, not pro­vide a shoot­ing script at all, cre­ates a sense of expert frag­men­ta­tion. Real­i­sa­tions come slow­er to Julie than they do to us, the all-see­ing audi­ence, as we gain a sense not only for Julie’s naïveté́, but the deep ache of want­i­ng some­one to so des­per­ate­ly match up to an image built in your mind’s eye.

Those famil­iar with Hogg’s won­der­ful gift for nuance and expres­sion will recog­nise that Julie’s artic­u­late­ness is no acci­dent; she is deli­cious­ly undone, out of her ele­ment so often in the face of Anthony’s with­er­ing barbs. With the pas­sage of time, Julie and Anthony’s romance becomes all-con­sum­ing. He shows her the world, his world, of Venet­ian opera and Frag­o­nard can­vas­es on dis­play at Marylebone’s Wal­lace Col­lec­tion. They host a din­ner par­ty with Anthony’s friends, includ­ing film­mak­er Patrick (Richard Ayoade), who tells Julie there are no rules when it comes to mak­ing art. ​“It’s like telling some­one how to breathe or think,” he declares.

But the more Julie under­stands of Anthony’s world, the more poi­son begins to seep into her own. The self­ish, grotesque nature of addic­tion looms large, insid­i­ous­ly caus­ing Julie to with­draw into her­self, away from friends and fam­i­ly, as Antho­ny gaslights her into believ­ing his pain is hers to endure.

Til­da Swin­ton – long-time friend of Hogg’s, who starred in her 1986 short film Caprice – plays Julie’s moth­er Ros­alind, who we first encounter in red welling­tons and a head­scarf, beset by a delight­ful cock­er spaniel, car­ry­ing a large lamp up a flight of stairs. She is Julie’s bedrock, stead­fast and depend­able, and Swin­ton, with her uncan­ny abil­i­ty to turn from oth­er­world­ly crea­ture to fright­ful­ly posh lady of the manor, sparkles in her small but inte­gral role. Late in the film, a sin­gle line deliv­ery dev­as­tates. Her fragili­ty and ten­der­ness have nev­er been more appar­ent as she hunch­es in on her­self and qui­et­ly shakes, wracked with tears. For The Sou­venir, in all its intri­ca­cy and inti­ma­cy, is deeply painful too, such a delib­er­ate, focussed pre­sen­ta­tion of how love some­times just isn’t enough.

How much do we lie to our­selves, Hogg won­ders, in order to chase an image we’ve built up in our head of how life (or indeed love) should be? Even the process of remem­ber­ing is as hazy and grainy as phys­i­cal film. David Raedek­er, on DoP duties, crea­tures strik­ing por­traits in close-up and wide-shot, evok­ing the plush detail of the Roco­co paint­ing that lends Hogg’s film its name, then the stark real­ism which Julie so des­per­ate­ly seeks as a film­mak­er. There’s nowhere to hide; every­thing comes clean in the end.

Dis­cussing her film­mak­ing plans, Antho­ny tells Julie, ​“We don’t want to see life played out as it is – we want to see life as it is expe­ri­enced with­in this soft machine.” So this is what Hogg shows us, through a painstak­ing process of per­son­al exca­va­tion. Her visu­al mem­oir is a romance, a trau­ma, a fam­i­ly dra­ma, a heart­break­ing com­ing-of-age spec­ta­cle, art about the com­pul­sion to cre­ate art – a swirling, shapeshift­ing, del­i­cate but dark creature.

Its soft­ness can­not be mis­tak­en for weak­ness, as the edges of The Sou­venir are as sharp as bro­ken glass. Hogg’s hon­esty and artic­u­la­cy have nev­er been more clear­ly on dis­play, and though Julie’s sto­ry is intri­cate and spe­cif­ic, it deals most­ly in the art of being young and alive, des­per­ate to feel some­thing that shakes the fab­ric of your soul.