Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 288: Mon Oct 16

Unrelated (Hogg, 2008): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.35pm

 
This 35mm presentation (also being screened on November 25th) is part of the Joanna Hogg season at BFI Southbank. Full details here. BFI update: At the request of the filmmaker, this film will now be presented on Digital as it was originally shot on that format.

Jigsaw Lounge review:
This is easily one of the most accomplished and unmissable new releases of 2008: a simple, supremely well-observed story of ordinary human emotions, with performances and dialogue that are, from the first scene to the last, painfully accurate and convincing. 
Shot in and around Sienna, it's primarily a detailed character-study of Anna (Worth), a mousy woman in her early forties who's experiencing unspecified marital problems. Keen to escape the stresses of home, she visits her long-time best pal Verena (Mary Roscoe) – who's holidaying in a well-appointed villa with her husband, children and some family friends. Feeling awkward among the dull, bourgeois adults, Anna gravitates towards the party's younger members – rapidly, and unwisely, allowing herself to become smitten with flirtatious, twentyish Oakley (Hiddleston). Shot on digital video on what was clearly a minimal budget,Unrelated shows just what can be achieved with the most limited and unpromising means. Hogg clearly has very intimate, first-hand knowledge of the specific social strata she is exploring and dramatising here, and the result is one of those rare works where we feel more like casual eavesdroppers than detached spectators. She's already working on her follow-up – and if this stunning debut (which has inspired comparisons with established masters such as Michael Haneke and Eric Rohmer) is any sort of guide, Hogg may develop into one of the major names in British cinema over the next few years.
Neil Young

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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