A noteworthy slow-burn arthouse horror from director Natalie Erika James – her debut film
Bound to frustrate traditional genre enthusiasts with her pacing—James is far more concerned with telling a nuanced story of dementia as horror metaphor, reoccurring visual imagery and some nice Polanski-like framing and use of the camera as voyeur
The stained glass door window is a great visual focal point for James—it has a meaning in the narrative, it is bounced off of formally several times, it is set up in the opening, the ending, and it is certainly pretty to look at
Elliptical editing in a few spots to create tension and the feeling that Emily Mortimer (daughter) and Bella Heathcote (granddaughter) are not alone
The editing overall is great- cutaways to reminder notes as part of the film form that Edna (played by Robyn Nevin—haunting) is leaving for herself as she loses her memory (of course there is a horror/sickness mirroring reading of the film)
In at least a few instances- James places the camera (or characters in dialogue) just behind a door or wall—gives the viewer an eerie leering feeling – again this was used in Rosemary’s Baby.
Hard not to think of Ari Aster’s generational horror film Hereditary
A solid horror setting- a beautiful house, run down pool and tennis courts
Dementia as a physical blackness taking over—that metaphor (which as it turns out with the end, is actually hereditary)—a strong (if not confusing at first) ending
[…] Relic – James […]