(Reviews of Broken Bird; And Mrsl and Point of Change)
BROKEN BIRD.
Joanne Mitchell was a busy actress before she started producing films in the early 2010s. She made her directorial debut with the short, Sybil (2018), and has now expanded it to feature length, with the help of co-scenarist Tracey Sheals, who had taken the title role. Broken Bird's other co-writer is Mitchell's actor-director husband, Dominic Brunt, with whom she has also worked on Before Dawn (2013), Bait (2014), Attack of the Adult Babies (2017), Wolf Manor (2022) and Evie (2023).
Having been trapped for several days (at the age of 10) in a crashed car with her deceased parents and siblings, Sybil Chamberlain (Rebecca Calder) has developed a thing for dead creatures. When not stuffing birds or roadkill foxes, she pursues her father's love of poetry by reciting at open-mike sessions. She applies for a job as a mortician at the funeral home that Mr Thomas (James Fleet) had run with his late wife for over three decades. In addition to mentioning a son at nursery school, Sybil also informs Thomas that she has previous experiences in the trade, even though her last place of employment closed down in unfortunate circumstances.
At an exhibition on Roman burials, Sybil meets gallery curator, Mark (Jay Taylor), and pictures them kissing. Imagination also troubles Emma (Sacharissa Claxton), a police officer who is still in shock after the disappearance of the young son she had chastised for knocking over a carton of milk in his Fox Man costume. While drunk, she calls her ex-husband (despite a restraining order) and tells him that she often thinks that the boy is just hiding under the bed and that none of their troubles had ever happened. He reports the call to her boss, Miller (Rupert Procter), who is forced to search the premises and suggests that Emma spends some time away to put things in perspective.
Pristinely dressed and with a carefully maintained square fringe, Sybil crunches crisps loudly to distract other poets at the weekly meetings. She also questions Thomas about the locked door on the corridor and is sceptical when he mumbles something about an old cold storage facility. When the grieving Mrs Fisher comes to view a body, Sybil imagines her cursing his failings and encourages her to punch her husband of 40 years in the face. In reality, she recites a verse she had crunched through the night before and the client is touched.
Some afternoons, Sybil wheels a buggy through the park. But she tells another mother that her son's at nursery when she takes up the offer of a private tour around the museum that Mark had made after he had bumped into her at the poetry club. He had been meeting his fiancée, Tina (Robyn Rainsford), who is amused by the way Sybil had looked at him from across the room. But he's taken aback when she arrives with her hair down and rouged lips (after she had had a flapper fantasy about a smoochy tryst that had culminated in her kissing her reflection in the mirror).
He's saved by Tina barging past and a nettled Sybil swears at some skateboarders when they mock her. She storms back to the museum and kicks Mark's motorbike before limping home to whispering goodnight into a room with a baby mobile dangling from the ceiling. Similarly, we don't see who Thomas is apologising to, as he creeps into the locked room and laments being so weak in keeping them there against their will.
While Emma goes to a cottage in the woods to relax, Sybil is appalled to discover Mark on Thomas's slab. He had crashed his motorbike and she worries that her kick had caused a fatal fuel leakage. But, as she gazes into the washroom mirror, a thought occurs to her and she returns to provide expert assistance, as Thomas removes body parts for the coroner. As he leaves her to lock up, Sybil strokes Mark's beard and saws an arm off another cadaver so she can sew it on to replace the one lost in the accident.
Having slept beside him all night, Sybil is brusque with Tina when she comes to view the body and is outraged when she peeps through the window to see her being consoled by another man. Drifting into fantasy again, she drapes her underwear over Mark's face and they dance together until she takes umbrage at Mr Fisher spying on them from his coffin. Cursing him, she castrates him with a scalpel and sews his severed member into his mouth.
Dipping out of poetry night when she spots Tina in the pub, Sybil passes Emma at door. Rushing home, she remembers Sybil with different hair at the funeral home where she had gone after her son has fallen from his bedroom window while high on sweets, only for the body to be stolen. While she investigates online, Sybil serves Tina Battenberg cake before showing her the corpse. Harsh words are exchanged for Sybil returns a face slap with a punch and Tina realises she's been poisoned.
Everything has been cleared away, with Tina being placed in Mark's coffin, before Thomas returns. He offers Sybil her own set of keys, but she announces she is going to have to leave, as she's met the love of her life and is expecting his baby. She reveals that she knows about his secret and promises not to tell. But he swallows poison and retires to bed just before Miller and his officers break down the front door. As he finds the body, Miller gets a call that a baby has been snatched from the park. However, Emma's cop pal, Sarah (Kerry Doyle), has already tipped her off about the Chamberlain family home and she arrives by torchlight to see a deranged Sybil dancing barefoot on broken glass, as the sitting-room filled with corpses burns.
In her mind, she's blissfully happy with her new family and elegant soirée guests, but reality has finally intruded. Miller rescues Emma and the baby, while Sybil pictures herself reciting verses to a packed theatre, as visions from her lonely childhood flash through her head. Turning to the camera, she regrets that she has only known love through death.
A standout performance by Rebecca Calder as a kind of sinister Amélie Poulain dominates this Guignolish necro-romantic saga, which has been directed with the utmost care by Joanne Mitchell. Delicious wisps of dark comedy fleck the Poe-influenced proceedings (Tina's lighter-lit discovery of her last resting place is a doosie), while just enough empathetic justification is provided for Sybil's ghoulish misdemeanours.
But, despite the astute supporting turns from James Fleet and Sacharissa Claxton, the screenplay struggles to integrate the subplots involving Mr Thomas and Emma, even though it gives the game away quite early about the connection between Sybil and the distraught mother. The manner in which pertinent information is withheld becomes increasingly contrived, although the ease with which Sybil gets hired by Thomas and the convenience of his mini-break had already strained credibility. But turning a blind eye and allowing the director to lead where they will is part of the pact one enters on sitting down to watch a horror movie.
Shooting in Belgrade, Mitchell and cinematographer Igor Marovic make a good job of recreating the north-eastern milieu, while Igor Veljkovic's funeral parlour is splendidly creepy, especially when the camera prowls between rooms. Editor Lesley Posso smoothly slips into Sybil's stylised reveries, which have a grim elegance evoking the part-remembered BBC serial seemingly playing in Sybil's fevered mind. Emily Rice's music gives these an extra shivery frisson, as the audience realise how crazed Sybil is and how low she is prepared to stoop.
With Calder matching Morfydd Clark in Rose Glass's Saint Maud (2019), this reinforces the impression that the best British horrors are currently being made by women. It will be interesting to see what Mitchell does next, as this marks quite a departure from the kind of pictures she has produced, thus far, for her fellow Emmerdale alumnus, Dominic Brunt.
CLOSE TO YOU.
Dominic Savage's Close to You is the first film in which Elliot Page has taken a lead since he came out as a trans man in 2020. He turned 36 shortly after the picture wrapped and it reached cinemas after the successful publication of his autobiography, Pageboy. Page is in a perfect position, therefore, to headline, produce, and co-author this kind of homecoming story, while also reminding us of the presence and sincerity that earned them an Oscar nomination for Jason Reitman's Juno (2017).
After the camera has lingered on his six-pack, as Sam (Elliot Page) gets up and dresses on a Toronto morning, it follows him into the kitchen, where he makes coffee and tells disabled landlady, Emily (Sook-Yin Lee), that he's not looking forward to going home for his father's birthday. Four years have passed since he last saw his family, during which time Sam has transitioned and he is not relishing the prospect of reliving his painful childhood, having to justify his decisions, and putting up with the best efforts of his parents and siblings to show how on board they are with his choice.
Sporting a red beanie, Sam trudges to the station. On the train, he recognises Katherine (Hillary Baack), his best friend from high school. Despite this closeness, they have not kept in touch over the last 15-odd years and they catch up in a staccato conversation that keeps returning to how good they think the other looks between revelations about Sam's transition and Katherine's marriage to the father of her two boys.
Sam is puzzled when Katherine hurries away at the station because she is being collected by husband Michael (Daniel Maslany). But he wanders over to suggest a coffee during his brief stay over and she declines because she has to work at a café downtown. Waving her off, Sam walks to his family's large suburban home, where he is given a warm welcome by mother Miriam (Wendy Crewson), brother Daniel (Jim Watson), and sisters Kate (Janet Porter) and Meghan (Alex Paxton-Beesley).
While Kate's new boyfriend, Stephen (Andrew Bushell) joins the greetings, Megan's fiancé, Paul (David Reale), hangs back. Father Jim (Peter Outerbridge) gives Sam a bearhug and thanks him for the tie he has chosen for his birthday present. But Sam rolls his eyes when Paul produces an expensive watch and, sensing the tension, Miriam asks Sam for help in the kitchen.
As they chop vegetables, she asks about Sam's life in the city and he mumbles some vague answers. She confides how much she has missed him and tries to apologise for having let him down. Paul comes looking for a bottle of wine and takes it upon himself to remind Sam that the lunch is about Jim not him and his hang-ups. When Sam argues his corner, Miriam steps in to prevent the confrontation escalating.
Wandering upstairs, Sam finds Kate in the bedroom they had shared growing up. She admits to feeling bad at not really knowing him when they were kids and offers her support. Sam feels frustrated that Kate hadn't shown such compassion when he was in a bad place, but their chat is interrupted by Stephen. He knocks over a glass and goes to fetch a cloth, giving Kate time to explain that they had met shortly after her divorce and Sam to divulge that he is enjoying a slutty phase, as he doesn't feel ready for anything long-term.
At this point, the action cuts away from the house to show Sam going for a walk with Katherine (but it's not made clear that this is a flash-forward). Bumping into Sam on the train has evidently unsettled her and she had been distracted when Michael had told her what he and the kids had been up to in her absence. He is sufficiently sensitive to realise that she's got something on her mind, but she opts not to share. After Sam and Katherine have indulged in some more awkward small-talk, we cut back to the house. Miriam beats herself up when Sam corrects her over a misused pronoun and she sobs that he's her brave boy and thanks him for teaching her so much that she ought to have known. He shrugs and offers that he feels supported by her.
Venturing into Jim's study, Sam evades going into details about his work and private lives in the city. His father recalls the feeling of powerlessness he had endured at watching his child become increasingly unhappy and unhelpable. He had been scared when Sam left home, as he knew he couldn't be there to step in if things went wrong. But he wants Sam to know that the day he phoned to say that he had transitioned was the happiest of his life and he couldn't be prouder of how he has worked out where he wanted to be and had the courage to go there.
Suddenly, we leave the darkness of the study for the bright winter sunlight at the beach. Sam and Katherine reminisce about how they had clung together because they were outsiders. Katherine (who is deaf) is taken aback when Sam declares that he had always loved her, while she had only ever thought of him as her best friend. Making her excuses, Katherine goes back to work, leaving Sam to play on the swings in the snow-covered playground.
Back at the house, Sam is sitting with Daniel, Stephen, and Paul. The latter expresses his annoyance at having to tread on eggshells around Sam and follow certain rules to avoid offending him. Sam asks what his problem is, seeking to goad Paul into admitting he's transphobic. But the shouting match brings Megan rushing into the room in an effort to defuse the situation.
Sam goes to leave and laments thinking that things could ever change. Miriam intervenes and pleads with her son to stay, as there is nothing more important than family. He counters that, if that is the case Paul should be asked to leave. However, Jim points out that he is going to marry Megan soon and will be part of the family. But Sam accuses his father of making the wrong call by telling him to rise above Paul's prejudice and he storms out.
Daniel rushes after Sam and he is about to tell him to save his breath in begging him to stay when Daniel gushes his admiration for everything his sibling has done and how he is a source of enormous inspiration. He makes Sam promise that they can meet in Toronto before he scurries home in time to see Jim return the watch that Paul had given him.
Deciding against catching the train, Sam wanders into town to the café where Katherine works. He persuades her to come for a walk (presumably the stroll we have already seen parts of) and reveals that he has always wanted her. Touched, but confused, Katherine expresses her affection. But she turns down his suggestion that she joins him in Toronto and returns to work.
As darkness falls, Sam drops into the café for a last goodbye. They hold hands and gaze into each other's tear-filled eyes, but he boards the train alone. Next morning, however, Katherine tracks him down in the city and they go back to his digs to make love. She discloses that he had made her feel so beautiful that she felt compelled to come. They kiss and hug at the station, with no plans seeming to have been made. The next morning, Sam gets up and feels in a much better place.
Earnest sincerity infuses every frame of what is clearly a deeply personal project for Elliot Page. He's in every scene bar two and his sense of being comfortable in his own skin is key to the purport of the drama, as he can't help but feel vulnerable in a place he should be able to call home. The problem with making the story all about Sam and his soul-baring emotions, however, is that there is no room for anything else, with the result that the film feels unbalanced and unconvincing.
The members of the admirable ensemble act the hell out of the scenario, but they have to, as no one has bothered to give them any character traits or backstories to work with and all they can do is exist in the scene and improvise for all their worth to keep it afloat. It doesn't help that Sam shows little or no interest in their lives, even though they haven't met for so long. Indeed, he doesn't even hold a conversation with Megan and only talks to Daniel after he bounds after him like an eager puppy.
Equally unhelpful is the fact that Sam is (naturally) so on the defensive that he fields questions about work and relationships with equivocal responses. Yet these prevent the audience from learning anything about him other than his transition and the residual resentments that he still harbours from an excruciatingly misunderstood youth. According to his train chat with Katherine, this ended around 15 years ago. But what did he do in the intervening decade before he severed his ties to his family and transitioned? Such slipshod plotting means that we shouldn't be overly surprised that we learn no specifics about how Sam's parents and siblings let him down when he was struggling with his identity. Had they been cruelly indifferent, woundedly hostile, confusedly conservative, or downright prejudicial? Jim confesses to having felt helpless, but what had he tried to do and how had these actions made Sam feel? Kate admits to not really having known him, but did she try to reach out or did Sam seek to confide in her?
Depriving the action of such crucial contexts gives it a teleplay feel, as, if you remove Sam's trans status from the equation, there's next to nothing left. We are shown Jim returning the watch, but we learn nothing more about how the visit will impact upon family dynamics. Does Megan dump Paul, do Kate or Daniel let him know their feelings, or do Jim and Miriam seek to atone so that four more years don't slip by?
We're left in this limbo, as Savage and Page (as the creators of the story) aren't interested in the family members as people. Their sole purpose is to reflect wider societal preconceptions and allow the drama to coalesce around Sam's pain. This is fair enough, as he is the person putting his newfound senses of self and acceptance on the line. But Sam's personality is also sketchily limned, as is Katherine's, with the result that their exchanges are no more grounded in knowable history or earned emotion.
In fact, the whole Katherine plotline is riddled with holes. If they had been so inseparable at school, why had they not remained in touch? Similarly, if they had been so close, surely Sam would have learned to sign in order to communicate with their friend and would not have needed a post-coital tutorial in how to pay her a compliment. Given the extent of the silence, it's bizarre for Sam to ask Katherine to abandon her husband and children, when he has no idea of the state of the marriage. It's a selfish suggestion that makes a decent man and two kids who need their mom utterly dispensable in Sam's scheme of things and there is something resistible in such a disregard for other people's feelings, so long as he gets what he wants by righting a nagging wrong.
No matter how moved Katherine might have been by Sam's protestation of love, it seems highly unlikely that she would just hop on a train without giving a second thought about the family waiting for her at home and go to bed with Sam, even if she is driven by unsuspected passion, neglected need, or irresistible curiosity. What makes this denouement feel even less authentic is the lack of rapport between Page and Hillary Baack, with the latter appearing to be less comfortable with improvisation (as is also the case with a couple of family members). However, she is hindered by the fact that Katherine is such a passive cipher whose situation and feelings are made by the writers to seem less important than Sam's. Such recurring imbalances undermine the film at every turn, especially when incidents like Sam's contretemps with Paul seem to come out of nowhere and are strewn with pre-prepared phrases that resound clunkily when so much effort has been expended in making the rest of the dialogue sound so naturalistic.
Careless continuity blips also prove enervating, notably when the playground is blanketed in snow when there isn't a single flake to be seen anywhere else in the town. Savage is a decent director, whose solid track record makes him a shrewd choice for such a notable film in Page's career. He and cinematographer Catherine Lutes make potent use of intimate close-ups, which serve to reinforce Sam's sense of isolation, while also stressing his fail-safe intensity. But the score that Savage has composed with Oliver Coates has a cloying tendency to hit nails on the head, as though they don't trust viewers to gauge emotional tones by themselves.
Frustratingly, director and star allow themselves to become so all-consumed by the central issue that they wind up doing it a disservice. This is a shame, as their intentions couldn't have been nobler and because transitioning is such important and relevant topic - and one into which Page has a unique insight.
AND MRS.
Since she nabbed a BAFTA for her TV series, This Way Up (2019-21), Aisling Bea has become a regular on the big screen. Following on from Dean Craig's Love Wedding Repeat (2020), Dan Mazer's Home Sweet Home Alone (2021), Coky Giedroyc's Greatest Days, and Brook Driver and Finn Bruce's Swede Caroline (2023) comes Daniel Reisinger's And Mrs, which is being released online rather than in cinemas.
Gemma Fitzgerald (Aisling Bea) is about to marry Nathan (Colin Hanks) when he suffers a fatal embolism while trying to put on a sock. Despite the well-intentioned efforts of her parents, Lorraine and Derek (Sinead Cusack and Peter Egan), to comfort her and the practical help of flight attendant best friend Ruth (Susan Wokoma) in cancelling wedding arrangements, Gemma is too dazed to function. She keeps having flashbacks to key points in her relationship with Nathan, but also sees his ghost popping up to speak to her at inopportune moments.
When sister-in-law-to-be Audrey (Billie Lourd) flies in from the States, Gemma has to break the news gently, as she is pregnant with a surrogate baby for a gay couple. Her response is to throw up in Ruth's Prada handbag at the airport and curse the fact that she is now alone, apart from her detested estranged mother, Margaret (Elizabeth McGovern). However, while offering her a place to stay, Gemma lets Audrey know how disappointed Nathan had been that she had not used the Christmas plane tickets he had sent her.
Walking out from the appalling funeral oration given by the self-obsessed Ian (Paul Kaye), Gemma thinks back to the night that Nathan had asked the pub quiz master (Nish Kumar) to help him propose and she decides to honour his request by marrying him posthumously because it was the thing he had most wanted in the world.
Having discovered online that it's possible to appeal to the Lord Chief Justice if due consent can be proven, Gemma and Audrey gatecrash a conference on prostitution to see Amanda Vaughn (Harriet Walter). However, Audrey's intervention gets them ejected and Gemma is wondering whether she's doing the right thing when she has a flashback to a row in Spitalfields Market in which Nathan had questioned her commitment and she had declared that families always break your heart.
Meanwhile, Gemma's letter has reached Amanda, who is informed about necrogamy by her assistant, Alan (Samuel Barnett), who explains that the 1808 Posthumous Marriage Act granted affianced women the right to marry sweethearts who had fallen in battle opposing Napoleon Bonaparte. Shortly after the arrival of Nathan's best friend, Dylan (Arthur Darvill), Gemma discovers she's got a meeting with Amanda. But it doesn't go well, as she has been married and divorced a number of times and isn't swayed by the romantic symbolism, even though Charles De Gaulle had allowed Irène Jodart to marry flood victim André Capra in 1958.
Despite not yet having permission, Gemma tries on her dress and gets into a row with Lorraine, who finds the whole thing distasteful. Ruth is also unconvinced and promises Lorraine that she will do her utmost to ensure the wedding never happens. However, she gets distracted by falling for Dylan, while Amanda's latest refusal to grant consent prompts Audrey to start protesting outside the law courts. This sparks a `corpse bride' trend online and the world's media pick up on it. But Amanda remains immovable unless Gemma can persuade Margaret to give her permission, as Nathan's next of kin.
Flying to Oregon with three days to go before the ceremony is booked, Gemma is appalled when Margaret tears up the form and orders her to leave. She returns to an intervention, in which Lorraine and Ruth try to make her see sense. But the latter's accusation that she never really wanted to marry Nathan tips Gemma over the edge and she storms out. When Audrey tries to kiss her in the taxi home, she gets out and sits by herself in the cemetery, where Nathan apologises for not being able to judge whether she's insane or not because he's dead.
Next day, as she's clearing out his belongings from their waterside apartment, Margeret's consent comes by recorded mail and Gemma has to enlist Ruth and Audrey's help in coaxing Amanda into accepting her petition. The realisation of what she is doing hits her when she arrives at the outdoor ceremony and she bursts into tears, as she has been sublimating her grief. But Audrey and her parents stand beside her, as gay friend, Mo (Omari Douglas), takes her through the vows.
He falls for Alan at the night do, while Ruth and Dylan get together. Eyebrows are raised when they realise Nathan's vows are the lyrics to `I Think I Love You' by The Partridge Family (which was Nathan's ringtone). But Gemma (who is wearing his odd blue sock under her white dress) is thrilled and she starts to sing hesitantly. Derek helps her out and all the guests join in, as Gemma sees Nathan looking quietly satisfied at the way things had worked out.
Taking up a 200 year-old law and running with it, playwright Melissa Bubnic succeeds in putting a new spin on the romcom. In making her screenplay debut, however, she piles too many complications on to a flimsy edifice and it's only the energy and geniality of Aisling Bea that prevents the conceit from toppling over. Delivering lines with an easy naturalism, Bea sometimes seems to be in a different film from her co-stars, particularly Colin Hanks, who tries hard to bring some of his father's boyish charm to proceedings, but is ultimately let down by Bubnic running out of ideas of how to use him.
Billie Lourd (Carrie Fisher's daughter, whose real-life pregnancy had to be written into the story) does her bit as the motor-mouthed sibling with a wacky knack for making things worse, while Harriet Walter delivers a deadpan masterclass as the chief justice who suspects the law is an ass. Sinead Cusack and Peter Egan also make much of little, although Susan Wokoma is so short-changed as Bea's full-throttle bestie that she winds up over-compensating. Nevertheless, she does well to retain her dignity, as law court security guard Sunil Patel requires her to strip when she keeps triggering the barrier alarm.
Cinematographer Murren Tullett makes the most of some trendy East End locations. However, director Daniel Reisinger and editor Matt Villa allow the pace to slacken in places, with scenes like Ruth being caught short on a nightclub dance floor being eminently cuttable. Reisinger and Bubnic might also have delved a little more deeply into how people deal with bereavement, especially as Bea's childhood loss of her father has given her a poignant insight into delayed grief. But the emphasis is firmly on feel-good and the willingly knowing cast ensures that this erratic picture delivers in the end.
POINT OF CHANGE.
Mention surfing documentaries and the mind goes to such idyllic classics as Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer (1966) and Stacy Peralta's Riding Giants (2004). But there's a flipside to the breaker paradise narrative, as demonstrated by Jeremy Gosch's Bustin' Down the Door and Michael Oblowitz's infamously elusive, Sea of Darkness (both 2008). Rebecca Coley's Point of Change belongs to the latter strain. However, its island spoliation theme also gives it much in common with A Story of Bones (2022), Joseph Curran and Dominic Aubrey de Vere's study of the impact of colonialism on St Helena.
Seeking the sense of contentment known as `santosha', Queensland surfers Kevin Lovett and John Geisel abandoned the conservative politics and macho beach culture of 1970s Australia in the hope of finding an unspoilt haven with good waves and accepting locals. They hit upon the Indonesian island of Nias, which anthropologist Bente Wolf explains had been under Dutch colonial control and Japanese occupation before the country had fought its way to independence in 1949.
On the 18-hour boat ride from Sumatra, the pair met surf explorer Peter Troy and his girlfriend, Wendy Adcock, who were touring the region and recognised the perfection of the tubular waves at Lagundri Bay. Local Gaya Gea recalls his amazement at seeing Australians zipping along the water on what looked like shields, while his parents thought that the colonials had returned and that the long-haired Geisel looked like the missionary pictures they had seen of Jesus.
When Troy and Adcock left, Geisel and Lovett moved into an abandoned hut and surfed off the beach at Sorake. The locals felt the spot was home to malign spirits and farmer Safarma Gea had to dissuade Nadeer the red-eyed birdman from beheading the intruders, as was the custom with Nias warriors. The friends remained for the summer, however, even though they contracted malaria.
When Lovett returned home, Geisel went overland to Europe. However, he died of double pneumonia on a campsite outside Tehran and Lovett decided to make a return visit to Sorake with his partner, Jan, and her siblings, Judy and Graham. During the stay, they were joined by Ingrid after her macho Kiwi boyfriend was asked to leave the camp. But malaria struck again and Lovett wasn't convinced he would ever return, in spite of the wonderful water.
Surf explorer Peter Reeves and photographer Erik Aeder heard about Nias and went to see for themselves in the late 1970s. They were enchanted, although Aeder felt guilty for publishing pictures in Surfer Magazine, even though he didn't mention Nias by name, as he knew the place would soon be inundated. As tourists came, locals like Rufus Gea learned how to cater for them, while daughter Bonne took to the waves like a natural, as did many of her friends, who picked up the technique on broken boards.
Nias was still a closely guarded secret until surf film-maker Dick Hoole let the cat out of the bag in 1980. He came in for some stick from surfers like Thornton Fallander, as the island became a hot spot, but he was unrepentant. After Coca-Cola filmed a commercial in 1990, Sorake was transformed, as guest houses sprang up and it became a party town on the hippy route. As a consequence, the traditional lifestyle was abandoned, as islanders chased the tourist dollar to the extent that they moved into drug dealing and prostitution.
Lovett returned after two decades and was appalled by what he saw, as paradise had been lost. He also learned that Ingrid had been abducted by Nadeer and Safarma claimed that her headless corpse had been found during building work. Lovett hopes she got away safely and uses the film to appeal for news.
In 2004, Nias was hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami and many beach-side properties were destroyed. The following year, the Nias-Simeulue earthquake was so severe that the island was raised in the tectonic shift. As a result, waves got bigger and locals started to make a showing in wider competitions, with Bonne Gea becoming Indonesian champion five times in the 2010s and Asian champ twice. This was a source of great pride to the community after it had endured such tough times.
The World Surf League held an event there and promised an increase in tourism, amidst fears that a sea wall might impact on the breakers. Lovett suggests that the Sorake community has channelled its shamanic heritage into wave riding, but there is a regret that somewhere so pristine has become so Westernised. Over footage of kids picking up litter from the beach, various voices express their dismay that changes on the point have been so deleterious. But Lovett opines that it's still possible to find santosha because it comes from within.
Several serious issues are raised in this engaging documentary. But the relentless jingliness of the soundtrack and some abrupt tonal shifts give this a scattershot feel that rather undermines discussion of the social and ecological effect of surf tourism on Nias and its residents. Mention is made of a local museum, but we learn nothing about the extent to which the indigenous culture has survived and is celebrated for the benefit of both the islanders and their visitors.
The disappearance of Ingrid is also handled in a peculiar manner. If she had disappeared, surely loved ones would have come forward and there would have been an international search. But Coley feels curiously incurious about her fate and that of Nadeer and his accomplice. Indeed, we hear too little from those who lived through the transformation of Lagundri and how they adapted to or even resisted the new economic and cultural realities. The surfing brigade members contribute with a blend of nostalgia and regret, but their story and its ramifications end up prevailing when it feels as though the focus should fall on the Ono Niha.
Having previously profiled Bonne Gea in the 2018 short, Changing Point, Coley and editors Elena Carmen and John Mister make smart use of the splendidly grainy 8mm footage shot by the first surfers, while colourfully innovative animations directed by Maxime Bruneel conjure atmosphere while also filling in the narrative gaps. Marek Mysicka and Chris Bryan's images of the island today are anything but picture postcard-like, which makes it so frustrating that the score, to which Paul Oakenfold and Oscar winner Stephen Warbeck have contributed, veers between mawkish passages and cornball pastiche.
With clearly enough talking points and material to go into greater detail, it's tempting to suggest that this might have worked better as a three-part series devoting more space to the historical and anthropological backgrounds, the notion of surf exploring, and how the different generations at Sorake have responded to the influx of outside ideas. But, despite its missteps and patchy analysis of santosha, this makes a fascinating introduction to what has been called `the surfer's burden', as Nias is far from the only place to have experienced its concomitant blessings and curses.
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