Forum screening - review - THOU WAST MILD AND LOVELY by Josephine Decker

In a rare Berlinale feat, American filmmaker Josephine Decker presented two films, with Thou Wast Mild and Lovely being the second one of these after the previously reviewed Butter on the Latch. This, of the two, is more conventionally structured and many will find that it is hence better structured. Whilst Butter on the Latch went a little heavy on the abstraction and became much more interested in the construction of an atmosphere and a delicate examination of the close bond between its two leading female characters, here Decker explores innocent sexual fantasies and their escalation into nightmarish territories.

 

The story is that of the three lead characters – a man and a daughter living in the countryside who hire a working hand for the summer, the suspiciously quiet and introverted Akin. Soon enough, the girl and the guy develop a sex-fuelled relationship that seems to make the atmosphere heavier and heavier as well as add tension to an already strained connection between her father and Akin, whom he questions and even bullies constantly about his quiet ways and about his beliefs that Akin may be hiding something from them.

 

The beginning misleadingly recalls the Malick melodrama style of impulsive filmmaking with plenty of room for the countryside environment to radiate through the screen and even a narration where a woman talks about ‘her love’ in poetic lingo. Her love here could be a man as easily as it could be the whole universe, and this too sounds like a Malick kind of dilemma. But it becomes pretty clear soon enough that a lack of a genuine communication between the three characters points at a strained relationship between them that can only mean bad news.

 

Decker seems to be very interested in creating a sensorial experience with her film by making use of unrestrained cinematography, editing and even sound. All this makes Thou Wast Mild and Lovely absorbing and even hypnotic. However, the aspects of the thriller constantly lurk sinisterly, and this makes their sudden outbursts all the more unsettling.

 

But what is most impressive about Thou Wast Mild and Lovely is the way in which, aside from its great and original mix of drama and horror, it is able to lightly touch upon its subject of human bonding by also making use of a tinge of satire. For instance, the characters are a little like archetypes of the countryside folks, with their ambiguity and their own distinctive signs of madness. But it is perhaps in the film’s epilogue that the film’s satire shows up most prominently, to the point where it makes the wrapping up of the story all the more different and rewarding.

 

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely is a work of sexual tension, meant in the traditional sense but also in its most literal form. It is as exciting, gripping and even frightening as well as misleading as a sweet dream that is destined to turn into a night terror you can’t shake out of. Full of the freshness of spontaneity, Decker’s film feels worryingly human and hauntingly real.

 

 

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64th Berlinale - review - BUTTER ON THE LATCH by Josephine Decker

 

 

43rd IFFR - review - FISH AND CAT (Mahi va Gorbeh) by Shahram Mokri