Tandem Film Review: The Souvenir & The Souvenir Part II
Images courtesy of Europa Europa 2022.
The Souvenir is a 2019 semi-autobiographical romantic-drama film written and directed by Joanna Hogg, about young film student Julie, played by Honor Swinton Byrne, as she falls into a complicated relationship with older gentleman Anthony, played by Tom Burke. The couple eat at nice restaurants, go to art museums, and travel to Venice, all while having intimately realistic conversations about the nature of their relationship and those they have with others. Anthony carries himself as a sophisticated man with high-brow taste and interesting takes on art and philosophy, and the shy and unassuming Julie eats it all up, but as their relationship grows closer it is clear that Anthony is taking advantage of her, even if the two are genuinely in love, as Anthony buys her lingerie and dresses her up for public outings. During a dinner party with two of Anthony’s friends, one of whom is played by the drily hilarious Richard Ayoade, it is revealed that Anthony is a heroin addict, and as his habit grows worse, the relationship becomes more and more unstable and potentially dangerous for Julie. Anthony does get clean after they break up, and their relationship seems like it will improve again only for him to die of an overdose off-screen, ending the film with Julie beginning production on her student film.
The film takes place over the course of around a year, though the timeline flows in an ambiguously linear way, almost as if watching the personal memories of Julie as she reflects on her relationship, rather than just watching the events unfold matter-of-factly. Punctuating scenes, almost like chapter breaks, are still shots of trees outside the studio lot accompanied by Julie’s narration of letters between Anthony and herself. Hogg only gives us fragments of the time these two spend with each other, picking and choosing the perfect moments just as one would when reflecting on memories. The slow pacing can become hard to sit through at times, yet scenes open and close at the perfect moments so that they rarely drag on for too long, as the payoff is an exceedingly intimate and personal look at this relationship through both the high points and the low.
Performances from Honor Swinton-Byrne and Tom Burke are naturalistic, but not performative: downplayed, as if they were just being themselves having honest conversations. This sense of naturalism is reinforced by Swinton Byrne being a non-actor, making her debut performance in these films. Tilda Swinton, Honor’s own mother, also has a lovely turn as Julie’s good-natured mother.
The Souvenir Part II takes place immediately after the events of the first film, as Julie directs her student film about her relationship with Anthony. It’s a meta-examination of the first film, as Julie is essentially directing The Souvenir over the course of this sequel. The story and the timeline are much less deliberately confusing here, to the film’s strength. The most significant jump in time is deliberately shown through Julie growing her hair out. It helps to go on this reflective journey alongside Julie, rather than just watching her recountings of events, as she deals with the grief of losing Anthony, has indecisive on-set trouble as a director, has a brief fling with the lead actor of her film (played by Charlie Heaton), and grows as a young woman through the newfound responsibilities of solo adulthood.
Returning is Richard Ayoade’s character Patrick, the eccentric but genuine filmmaker, in a much bigger supporting role as he directs the film he talked about at the first film’s dinner party with Julie and Anthony. Ayoade steals every scene he’s in and Patrick acts as almost a moral center for Julie at times when she needs it most.
Both films are gorgeously shot, too: understated in style, yet successful in bringing out the beauty in small details or scenic fields and city streets alike. The grainy film footage of the first film adds a layer of hazy nostalgia, reinforcing the notion of revisiting memories both painful and pleasant, while the second film is shot in a much clearer film stock, even indistinguishably switching to digital for certain scenes. There are lots of really interesting uses of windows and mirrors, creating frames within frames to many different effects, be it to separate characters, or to push them together, to isolate or trap the characters within their environments and in their own social situations; a level of realism to the story that is made more lovely through how it’s shot. The most striking sequence in the second part being the colourful, dreamlike short film towards the end, playing around with many different technicolour styles and backdrops, reminiscent of Hogg’s own 1986 student film Caprice, which interestingly featured one of Tilda Swinton’s earliest performances.
Being a former film student myself at a similar age to Julie, I found the scenes portraying film school very funny, though I also caught myself extremely jealous of the resources provided at such a prestigious British college. Having grown up a few years, I can really appreciate the level of detail provided to all the characters, even the bit-players, be it their taste in art or how they bicker about and solve problems on set.
Follow Nick on Twitter and Letterboxd.
Both films were screened back-to-back, with a foreword by Joanna Hogg and Honor Swinton Byrne, as part of the Europa Europa Film Festival. The Souvenir Part II is screening in cinemas nationally now.