Tides

In 1889, author Jerome K Jerome released his sem­i­nal nov­el, ​‘Three Men in a Boat’, a breezy, melan­cholic account of a trip down the Riv­er Thames. Tupaq Felber’s debut fea­ture, Tides, can be seen as a mod­ern refit of Jerome’s book as it sees old friends reunite to dis­cov­er England’s water­ways. There are over­laps between the two, but there are also dif­fer­ences: the one pre­vail­ing mantra in both hails the impor­tance of friend­ship, yet the com­ic mis­ad­ven­ture and whim­sy of the book is now replaced with sub­dued contemplation.

The over­ar­ch­ing nar­ra­tive of Tides sim­i­lar­ly direc­tion­less. Fel­ber has cre­at­ed a char­ac­ter study in the style of a kitchen-sink dra­ma, which focus­es on the con­ver­sa­tions between the pro­tag­o­nists as they air their per­son­al demons. In his haunt­ing and allur­ing nau­ti­cal voy­age of emo­tion­al dis­cov­ery, the writer-direc­tor inquires into the com­plex­i­ties of inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships, and the bonds between individuals.

Real­ism is the name of the game here, which is clear from the off. Dia­logue over­laps, and what ini­tial­ly appears clum­sy is quick­ly revealed as an inten­tion­al­ly un-cin­e­mat­ic encap­su­la­tion of every­day con­ver­sa­tion. This results in an impro­vi­sa­tion­al feel, often for bet­ter, some­times for worse. The exchanges between char­ac­ters offer strong illus­tra­tions of com­pan­ion­ship, indica­tive of a shared his­to­ry and shorn of unnec­es­sary exposition.

The flip­side is that the method occa­sion­al­ly segues into con­fused argu­ments which are laced with lots of cos­met­ic curs­ing. The mean­der­ing nature of the dia­logue occa­sion­al­ly caus­es sev­er­al scenes to drag. All the char­ac­ters are charged by Felber’s abil­i­ty to coax unabashed­ly real­is­tic per­for­mances from his actors, each of whom is left to deal with their own per­son­al cathar­sis. The mono­chrome cin­e­matog­ra­phy sep­a­rates light and dark­ness to visu­al­ly repli­cate their inter­nal isolation.

The use of black-and-white man­ages to infil­trate a sense of unease amongst the jol­li­ty of the on-screen action. Antho­ny Rus­sell and Alvin Ryan’s spright­ly score is, for the most part, over­bear­ing and obtru­sive. Its pres­ence fluc­tu­ates in reg­u­lar­i­ty, and seems almost whol­ly unnec­es­sary amid the ambi­ent sound design which incor­po­rates bird­song and water lap­ping at the river­banks. A won­der­ful moment of hazy non­cha­lance employ­ing gui­tar accom­pa­ni­ment late in the film serves as a reminder of what it could have been.

Inter­nal strug­gles sim­mer through­out, their even­tu­al reveal pro­vid­ing a well-earned and refresh­ing­ly sub­tle emo­tion­al release. The film­mak­ers inten­tion­al­ly avoid any kind of emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion. Tides is, at heart, a med­i­ta­tion on the redemp­tive capa­bil­i­ty of friend­ship, and one well worth going with.