The Eternal Daughter
Mysterious drama about a middle-aged woman and her mother – a double role by Tilda Swinton – who are confronted with their past upon returning to their old family home.
This haunting mystery from director Joanna Hogg (THE SOUVENIR I & II) stars Tilda Swinton in a mesmerizing performance as a woman forced to confront past memories while visiting an eerily empty old manor. The film begins in a thick, foreboding fog. The middle-aged Julie and her elderly mother are led through a formal tree-lined driveway to their hotel, where they are to spend some quality time together, affording Julie the opportunity to glean details from her mother’s past in order to make a film about her life. All seems askew almost immediately, however. A disagreeable receptionist refuses to grant them a good room despite near-total vacancy, their room has a shabby view and they hear disturbing noises at night. In the rhythmic and ritual-like nature of their days – with the repetition of work, dinner, dog walks, and bedtime – the passage of time becomes increasingly blurred, and the film grows ever-more spooky as long-suppressed secrets arise.
Elegantly shot on 35mm film in Panavision, with an evocative score and howling, wintry winds, THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER’s narrative is suffused with the spectre of loss and the remembrance of things past, ingeniously playing with the conventions of the ghost story without abandoning a warm and humanist beating heart. And, of course, this is Hogg’s version of a ghost story, which means the creepy atmosphere is also occasionally disrupted by polite arguments and requisite dry wit. (source: www.tiff.net)