Critically
acclaimed British filmmaker Clio Barnard’s third official feature Dark River finds the director moving
away from her experimental roots that defined her debut The Arbor and yet emerges with a picture no less devastating than
her Oscar Wilde picture The Selfish Giant.
Spoken
of the same breath as Tim Roth’s The War
Zone in terms of depicting the overarching effects sexual abuse has on a family
though far more restrained and lyrical in approach by comparison, Dark River is a somber yet painterly
character driven drama as well as a near-silent thriller of burgeoning familial
tensions. That its realisateur paints
with broad brushstrokes here instead of the elliptical approach characteristic
of her first feature doesn’t diminish the film’s emotional power and dreary
tonality, leaving you the viewer feeling as if you’ve been struck full blast by
oceanic white caps.
Based
loosely upon Rose Tremain’s novel Trespass
concerning two elders in Southern France enmeshed in a property dispute,
Barnard transposes the story to Yorkshire and decreases the age of the
brother-sister siblings considerably with the additional thread of buried
familial secrets coming back to haunt the feuding duo. Enter Alice Bell (Ruth Wilson), a young sheep
shearer who makes the hasty decision to return home on the eve of her father’s
death in order to claim tenancy of the farmland as father promised.
Her
mission proves increasingly difficult as buried memories of her abusive father
threaten her psychological stability not long before her irate and slovenly
brother Joe (Mark Stanley) arrives on the scene to lock horns over the land rights,
building up to an unforgettable confrontation that will invariably reshape the
rest of their lives forever.
Bleak
and foreboding yet consistently engaging with strong performances from the small
cast including but not limited to Sean Bean seen briefly in flashback as Alice’s
father, Dark River benefits greatly
from the Yorkshire setting with stunningly beautiful wide angled shots of the
countryside exquisitely captured by cinematographer Adriano Goldman.
Aiding
the dismal proceedings is a mournful original score by Harry Escott who also
collaborated with singer PJ Harvey to provide a cover of the traditional
English folk song An Acre of Land, capturing
the tone of the world and the characters inhabiting it perfectly. While original songs are always going to be
debatable in regards to their service to a picture outside of copping an
Academy Award nomination, it’s hard to imagine Dark River being nearly half as effective without Escott and Harvey’s
musical contribution to the piece.
Downbeat
and heavy yet modest in how it deals with the difficult subject matter, dreary
yet sublime to behold visually and sonically a gift for the ears, Dark River isn’t fun or easy viewing yet
proves to be most rewarding for those willing to tough it out. Full of scenic beauty and delicate in how it
assesses the highs and lows experiences by the characters, Clio Barnard’s third
feature will leave quite an impression on viewers.
As
a story dealing with as troubling a subject as abuse, it never exploits or
sensationalizes, keeping the perspective grounded from the prism of the protagonist’s
point off view. This taut and effective
independent drama isn’t for all tastes but for the adventurous cinephile it’s a
solid little number that cements the writer-director’s reputation as an exciting
new talent to watch closely for!
--Andrew Kotwicki
