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Vigil, 1984
Adolescent Toss (Fiona Kay) has her world turned upside down when her father is killed by a poacher, Ethan (Frank Whitten). As Toss's mother, Elizabeth (Penelope Stewart) struggles to keep their family farm afloat with the help of Toss and Toss's grandfather, Birdie (Bill Kerr), Toss receives another shock when Ethan is taken on by her mother as help around the farm. Plagued by a sense of unease and strange dreams, Toss must decide how to handle Ethan's presence.
This is a moody, ominous coming-of-age film that sits somewhere between The Reflecting Skin and Valerie's Week of Wonders in terms of "the world is a messed up, confusing place!" discomfort.
Toss is a fascinating protagonist, full of conflicting loyalties and anger and confusion, all layered under the already-confusing wave of puberty. Kay gives an intense, emotional performance as a young woman whose world is crumbling around her. The film captures the emotional turmoil of a young person realizing that the people around her are powerless or flawed or selfish, and that she cannot really rely on them.
The other characters are not as well-drawn as Toss, which is a bit unfortunate. I appreciated the touch that her grandfather, Birdie, is also facing an uncertain future and responds in ways that are not always the most mature. There is a lot of unspoken grief swirling around the whole family. Ethan is kept in a very nicely ambiguous light. At times he seems like an okay guy who is maybe trying to make things right after a terrible accident. At other times, he seems more like a predator who has taken down the family's line of defense and is now moving in on its weaker members.
Elizabeth, Toss's mother, is the character whose actions are the most confounding at times. While I think that this sometimes nicely reflects the idea that Toss is growing into a woman and must start to see her mother as a woman and not just a caretaker, at other times it's behavior that veers into the bizarre. At one point, Elizabeth seems pretty convinced that Ethan has attempted to molest Toss. This is also the guy who killed her husband. And yet five minutes later she seems to have just gotten over it? Her character seemed frustratingly inconsistent, and I can only attribute some of that to the whole child's point of view element.
On the whole, the film is filled with strange and uncomfortable moments, increasingly so as it moves toward its last act. I had a viscerally disgusted response to a sequence where Ethan tells Toss he can summon souls. When she asks if he can summon her father's spirit, he puts his hand on her face and then puts his fingers in her mouth. This only gets more disturbing when a similar shot is used later
This film was very effective as a portrait of an alienating early teenage experience. Toss doesn't know what to make of her emotions, which come out in strange actions and even stranger dreams. While I thought the film was a bit slow to start, it picks up its own sense of bizarre pacing in its middle and final acts.
Vigil, 1984
Adolescent Toss (Fiona Kay) has her world turned upside down when her father is killed by a poacher, Ethan (Frank Whitten). As Toss's mother, Elizabeth (Penelope Stewart) struggles to keep their family farm afloat with the help of Toss and Toss's grandfather, Birdie (Bill Kerr), Toss receives another shock when Ethan is taken on by her mother as help around the farm. Plagued by a sense of unease and strange dreams, Toss must decide how to handle Ethan's presence.
This is a moody, ominous coming-of-age film that sits somewhere between The Reflecting Skin and Valerie's Week of Wonders in terms of "the world is a messed up, confusing place!" discomfort.
Toss is a fascinating protagonist, full of conflicting loyalties and anger and confusion, all layered under the already-confusing wave of puberty. Kay gives an intense, emotional performance as a young woman whose world is crumbling around her. The film captures the emotional turmoil of a young person realizing that the people around her are powerless or flawed or selfish, and that she cannot really rely on them.
The other characters are not as well-drawn as Toss, which is a bit unfortunate. I appreciated the touch that her grandfather, Birdie, is also facing an uncertain future and responds in ways that are not always the most mature. There is a lot of unspoken grief swirling around the whole family. Ethan is kept in a very nicely ambiguous light. At times he seems like an okay guy who is maybe trying to make things right after a terrible accident. At other times, he seems more like a predator who has taken down the family's line of defense and is now moving in on its weaker members.
Elizabeth, Toss's mother, is the character whose actions are the most confounding at times. While I think that this sometimes nicely reflects the idea that Toss is growing into a woman and must start to see her mother as a woman and not just a caretaker, at other times it's behavior that veers into the bizarre. At one point, Elizabeth seems pretty convinced that Ethan has attempted to molest Toss. This is also the guy who killed her husband. And yet five minutes later she seems to have just gotten over it? Her character seemed frustratingly inconsistent, and I can only attribute some of that to the whole child's point of view element.
On the whole, the film is filled with strange and uncomfortable moments, increasingly so as it moves toward its last act. I had a viscerally disgusted response to a sequence where Ethan tells Toss he can summon souls. When she asks if he can summon her father's spirit, he puts his hand on her face and then puts his fingers in her mouth. This only gets more disturbing when a similar shot is used later
WARNING: spoilers below
during a sex scene between Elizabeth and Ethan, the lingering shot of her taking his fingers into her mouth a distressing echo of that earlier scene.
This film was very effective as a portrait of an alienating early teenage experience. Toss doesn't know what to make of her emotions, which come out in strange actions and even stranger dreams. While I thought the film was a bit slow to start, it picks up its own sense of bizarre pacing in its middle and final acts.