🍿30: The Souvenir Part II

This week, further praise for the art of short film and a feature review for the beautiful 'The Souvenir Part II'.

Feb 10, 2022

“I suppose, in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most… is not taking a moment to say goodbye.”
~ The Life of Pi, 2012

Get shorty…

In the last edition of Salty Popcorn, I mentioned how I was gifted an online ticket for Sundance, which gave access to a range of short films premiering at the festival. The films I saw — as well as those at the London Short Film Festival (LSFF) — have given me a new appreciation for short films.

As features have gotten longer in recent years (with most being 2-3 hours), it’s refreshing to get a whole story in 10-20 minutes, let alone one that is wholly original. Short films pay so much attention to detail and they’re so good at keeping a focus that they’re incredibly powerful and more than I’ve previously given them credit for.

If you don’t often watch short films but you’re given a chance to (and I’m about to give you one) then why not try something new?

On a similar note, Three Meetings Of The Extraordinary Committee, which won the comedy award at the LSFF (as mentioned in 🍿#29) has been nominated for a BAFTA - and I’m thrilled for the filmmakers!

Staying true to my promise in the last SP, I’ve found where you can stream Three Meetings and it’s available for free! Just head to Paus, via this link. Creating an account is as easy as entering your email and creating a password. Enjoy!

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Upcoming Releases

Men

UK: 20 May // USA: 20 May

The latest work from writer & director Alex Garland, best known for books like The Beach and films like Ex Machina, is a horror drama starring Jessie Buckley. The details are scarce, but this trailer will give you shivers.

Lightyear

UK: 17 June // USA: 17 June

Brace yourselves to travel to infinity and beyond with Buzz Lightyear’s origin story, the full trailer for which dropped on Tuesday!

While Lightyear will undoubtedly be the family film of the summer, if not the year, it’s a shame Tim Allen won’t be reprising the role.

Fact of the week

There are a lot of close ties in The Souvenir. For starters, writer and director Joanna Hogg, has been friends with Tilda Swinton since they were 10 years old.

There’s no doubt then that Hogg has known Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne since she was born (she’s her godmother!) but it may come as a surprise that she hadn’t considered casting Honour for the role of Julie. In fact, Hogg was struggling to find the right person until just weeks before shooting.

Until that is, Tilda met Hogg to discuss her role in the film and coincidentally Honor joined them. It wasn’t until then that she started to see how great Honour would be for the part, despite never having acted before.

Review: The Souvenir Part II

Star rating:

4 (out of 5)

Where to watch:

USA: Only in cinemas

UK: Only in cinemas

Runtime:

1hr 46m

Director:

Joanna Hogg

Blurb:

Ambitious film student Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) enters an intoxicating world of unpredictable romantic entanglements in 1980s London.

Warning: The trailer below contains spoilers for the first film. That said, I saw it before seeing the first film and enjoyed it nonetheless. If you’ve yet to see The Souvenir you’ll be glad to know it’s currently available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and will be for another 12 days.

The review (NO spoilers):

As the sequel to Joanna Hogg’s account of her life as a film student in 80’s London, The Souvenir Part II is a film of beauty and subtle yet powerful emotion - and it’s only a little pretentious.

The film follows on directly from the first and carries with it a lot of the original stylistic traits. These do, however, feel as though they’ve evolved in some way. For me, this shift felt like a metaphor for the changes Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) goes through and her own evolution.

Make no mistake, this is what the film is about. It’s an unconventional coming-of-age story. It’s an intimate look at how Julie copes with the aftermath of Part I and, more importantly, how she moves forward.

Despite having more surreal moments than the first, Part II somehow felt much more real and everything felt like it mattered. This was achieved mostly through the wonderfully understated interactions between characters and a general lack of music, making the audience feel like a fly on the wall.

The result is a tangible bond between us and Julie. We desperately want for everything to be okay and for every moment that we see her struggle, it’s hard to watch.

This film is superb, it may be worth more than the 4 stars I’m giving it here, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Scroll down to see what’s in the next issue.

If you liked The Souvenir Part II…

The Kindergarten Teacher

2018 | UK: Mubi / BFI Player (£3.50) // US: Netflix

A New York teacher (Maggie Gyllenhaal) sees such great promise in her 5-year-old student that she goes to unreasonable lengths to protect his poetry talents which she believes to be prodigious.

While this is very different to The Souvenir in substance, we do follow a strong female lead down a journey teeming with emotional and psychological complexity.

In the next issue:

Flee

UK: 11 February // USA: 3 December 2021 | Watch the Trailer

Salty Popcorn