CFF60 review - COUPLE IN A HOLE by Tom Geens

What is an average middle class couple doing, living a primitive and solitary life in the woods? COUPLE IN A HOLE by TOM GEENS was featured in the programme of the 60th CORK FILM FESTIVAL.

COUPLE IN A HOLE is striking because it has both a literal and metaphorical sense. Director TOM GEENS said that his starting point for the construction of the film was the simple image of a middle-class couple with dirty clothes living in a hole in the woods. This might also explain the unusual language and vivid experimentation of narrative that takes place in his latest film. 

The man John (PAUL HIGGINS) is a man who spends his days hunting small animals with his bare hands and his wife Karen (KATE DICKIE), knits furs together, wraps mysterious packages to give to her husband and seems unable to leave the hole that is essentially the couple's home and refuge from the rest of the world for longer than a minute. To reveal more than this about the plot, would be spoiling a little of the fun that is COUPLE IN A HOLE, a film in which the narrative language aims to interactive viewer also by way of playing with a viewer's perception of what the film might be, both in a sense of the collective vision but also with the development of the story through its many twists. 

The pacing itself moves at a crescendo - at the start the plot turns are used sparingly, but progressively increase until the strange and cathartic ending. This might be because as the film develops, it becomes less of a bizarre depiction, as the human side of the story becomes more understandable, and the themes of loss, pain, sadness and loneliness intensify the relationship between the man and the woman in the pivotal couple - but also the way in which they react to the outside world.

Despite the strangeness of the story, the film maintains a level of sincerity also because it never goes down a rout of flashy surrealism, and certainly not in a visual sense. TOM GEENS and cinematographer SAM CARE treasure the darkness of the Midi-Pyrenees forest in which the setting is based, and its natural frightening charge and power. 

Likewise, PAUL HIGGINS and KATE DICKIE are very impressive in their very physically demanding turns. They look rugged and rough, despite not necessarily skin and bones, but essentually what is just as striking is the way in which they look like average folks in an extraordinary situation. But aside from the physicality of their roles, the psychological nature of their strange relationship is just as haunting. When he seems to entertain a hope for eventually leaving the hole in which they find themselves, she seems quite protective of her both metaphorical and actual psychological duvet, to the point of kicking and screaming vehemently when her husband tries to pull her out of it, even if it's only for a stroll on a nice day. In fact, the development of KATE DICKIE's character, which evolves into something that is more and more animalistic, is one of the most subtly rewarding aspects of the build up in suspense in COUPLE IN A HOLE. 

As an icing on the cake, the energy benefits from the unusual energy provided by, the soundtrack by UK indie band BEAK>. With their soft, meticulous and synthetic instrumentals, they seem to clash with the organic nature of the rest of the film, and once again shows a type of playfulness that is at the heart and soul of TOM GEENS film, and makes it such a rewarding watch.