STRANGER THINGS
B
Great Britain
USA (77 mi) 2010 d: Ron Eyal and Eleanor Burke
This kind of social realist film may represent the future of
independent cinema, as it has a small budget, a minimalist low-key approach,
using a simple concept of boy meets girl, though meeting under unusual
circumstances, and at 77 minutes couldn’t be more concisely told. Written by a husband and wife collaboration
where the husband also directs, while the wife shoots and co-edits the film, what’s
particularly effective is this small, quiet work has the intimate feel of a
personal investment, feelings that are transferred to the audience as well,
where a bare bones script never over-explains, where so much is communicated
wordlessly, leaving something to think about afterwards. It would be such a pleasure if more films
could set out to accomplish those few goals, where the focus is on writing and
acting, developing character, without ever revealing too much. Part of the beauty is how much remains a
mystery, where one can ponder various possibilities of what might eventually
happen in the end. The oceanside
location on the English Channel in East Sussex, England couldn’t be more
picturesque, and if you don’t believe it, check this out: 1,280
× 857 pixels, where that endless stretch of green leads directly into the
back yard of one of the lead characters, Oona (Bridget Collins), who arrives at
her mother’s seaside cottage after her recent death. While the home is in a state of disarray, it’s
also evident that Oona hasn’t been there for awhile, tidying up the place and
resuscitating memories while she quietly sifts her way through much of the
memorabilia. Looking as if she’s having
a hard time of it, especially getting it ready for sale, a friendly neighbor
insists that she spend the night, where she spends much of the time recalling
moments with her mother, who was apparently as socially awkward as her daughter
appears to be. Oona tapes the conversations,
adding it to her collection of recordings as an anthropologist, where she’s
attempting to establish an identifying train of thought that defines and brings
her closer to her mother.
When she returns the next morning with a real estate agent,
she’s alerted by strange sounds, grabbing a mop and smashing the face of an
intruder, screaming at him to get out. Mani
(Adeel Akhtar) is homeless, seen earlier traveling with a sick, elderly
companion known as Bagman (Keith Parry), who he apparently left alone on the
beach while he sought shelter, finding what he thought was an abandoned home to
spend the night. After sorting things
out and collecting her thoughts, she finds a sketchbook left behind, where Mani
had been drawing things her mother made, as she was something of an eccentric
artist herself. Moved to remorse, she
runs down the road to return it, where the two have an awkward meeting filled
with hesitations, but she invites him to spend the night in a small shed in the
garden that used to be her playroom, also bringing him blankets and
cookies. Not much is said, but it’s
clear her intentions are friendly, as she often smiles nervously and tries to
be a gracious host. Mani, on the other
hand, is Middle Eastern, dark-skinned, and probably hasn’t been treated kindly
since he can remember, but he’s not one to turn down a generous offer. In the morning, she gives him some money and
some bread, and resumes her cleaning.
When he returns again that evening, she’s initially mortified, but he’s
completely non-threatening, so this time she offers him a bath, recalling the
grimy bathwater in GUMMO (1997), and they share a meal, but they learn little
about one another. At first Oona tries
to interview him, like one of her anthropology projects, but he’s obviously
disturbed by her questions, probing areas of his life he’d just as soon
forget. In fact, they each remain a
mystery to one another throughout, and to the audience as well, where they are
a college graduate and a homeless person, where we can only imagine their pasts.
While there is a level of aloofness on Oona’s part, where
Mani continues to belong to some “other” category, where her well meaning
efforts can appear patronizing, the larger issue seems to be her own
insecurities and loneliness, where both appear to have problems connecting with
other people. Oona dreams of traveling
the world and learning to appreciate “other” cultures, not realizing those
mysteries exist all around her. In fact,
she seems to have had a fairly distant relationship with her own mother, none
of which is ever explained. It’s this
unknown aura that draws us to each of them, as they are likely not the people
they would wish to be, and they really don’t know how to change the
circumstances that led them there. It’s
of particular interest that Oona fabricates reality to make the world easier to
live in, lying about how close she was to her mother at the end, while Mani
avoids reality altogether, so caught up in daily survival, which plays into the
finale, which remains grim, but is perhaps overly hopeful. Coming together by accident, they’re both
completely unfamiliar how to get past this awkward stage, both products of
difficult pasts, where bits of flashbacks reveal a few troubled moments,
followed by tight close ups where they remain puzzled by the enormous distance
between people. Apparently the cast and
crew lived in this house while they were shooting, perhaps adding an element of
unvarnished truth to these unglamorous lives.
This is a quiet film, without a musical soundtrack, that never reveals
its secrets, that instead forces the viewer to examine what societal walls are constructed
to keep “others” out, where we routinely walk past people on the street every
day, or avoid faces on the bus, without knowing the least bit about them, often
making judgments about their unpleasantness.
It’s an impersonal world that makes even death feel like a stranger has
passed, where we often have little to no connection with our own families. This film also examines social class and the
collective baggage we all carry, where more often it’s easier to simply look
the other way, but this has accumulative effects, leaving us further isolated
from ourselves and one another, even those we care about the most.
