Exhibition

Exhibition with Viv Albertine, Liam Gillick.

Exhibition (2013)
Love / About Art
Theme: What’s Up, UK?
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Joanna Hogg
Screenplay: Joanna Hogg
Starring: Viv Albertine, Liam Gillick, Tom Hiddleston
Production: Gayle Griffiths / Wild Horses Film Company, BFI British Film Institute, BBC Films, Rooks Nest Entertainment
Duration: 104 min
Rating: 16
    Language: English
    Subtitles: N/A
    Distribution: Visit Films
    Print source: Visit Films
    Cinematography: Ed Rutherford
    Editing: Helle Le Fevre
    Sound: Jovan Ajder
    Production design: Stéphane Collonge
Collaboration: British Embassy Finland
Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) Love & Anarchy.
Viewed at Kinopalatsi 5, Helsinki, 25 Sep 2019

Robbie Collin quoted by HIFF: "The new Joanna Hogg film is a tinder-dry meditation on the uneasy commingling of our public and private selves: just the ticket for Sunday afternoon if the kids have already seen Spider-Man."

"Hogg’s films are so fearlessly intelligent, and are built with such steel-enforced formal precision, that you feel as if you should check twice to see if she’s really British, although she grew up in a village near Tunbridge Wells, was mentored by Derek Jarman in her twenties, and directed episodes of Casualty and EastEnders before her debut feature, Unrelated, was released in 2007, which pretty much settles it 50 times over."

"Exhibition is her third feature – her last, Archipelago, was released in 2010, to near-blanket critical acclaim – and it establishes her as our preeminent pryer into the affairs of the English haute-bourgeoisie. The film is set almost entirely in a Modernist des-res in west London, where its married owners are reluctantly preparing to move out."

"Tom Hiddleston, who made his film debut in Unrelated and starred in Archipelago, has a fun cameo as their gloopy estate agent." Robbie Collin, The Telegraph (quoted by HIFF)

AA: Exhibition is the name of this film, and it refers to a forthcoming solo exhibition by D (Viv Albertine), the female protagonist. The exhibition will be a mixture of performance and drawing.

The main storyline is about the moving out of the couple from their beloved house. The husband is also known only by an initial, H. He is played by Liam Gillick.

They are determined to sell, but only very reluctantly. The house itself is a major character. Joanna Hogg covers it in long takes and long shots with her personal and unique mise-en-scène.

D and H have not only rooms of their own but floors of their own. They do not see each other all the time but they hear each other, and they frequently communicate via intercom.

Much is seen in reflections. Beyond the superficial plot more profound currents are only hinted at. Joanna Hogg's approach is elliptic and distanced.

But Exhibition is a story of a love marriage. D and H have found a balance of intimacy and distance. Sex is alive. D enjoys nudity, fetishes and autosex besides the regular repertory.

The elegance of the visuals has an affinity with Antonioni, but this is not a story of alienation. The austerity of the visuals is compensated with an emphasis of the sound world.

Exhibition is an original and memorable visual poem.

NIINA HOLM (HIFF):

Brittiohjaaja Joanna Hoggin kolmas pitkä elokuva, Exhibition, kuvaa keski-ikäisen taiteilijapariskunnan kriisiä elämänmuutoksen edessä. Lapseton pari myy taloaan arvostetulla Islingtonin alueella Lontoossa. Luopumisen kirvelyyn kietoutuu koko yhdessä eletty elämä muistoineen ja odotuksineen.

Boheemiin yläluokkaan kuuluvaa pääparia näyttelee kaksi amatööriä: Slits-yhtyeen kitaristi Viv Albertine ja kuvataiteilija Liam Gillick. D:ksi ja H:ksi nimetyn pariskunnan välillä on lämpöä ja seksuaalista jännitettä, mutta myös painostavaa kitkaa. Miksi talo on kaupan? Mistä kriisissä pohjimmiltaan on kysymys? Aukkoinen tarina kiusaa ja kiehtoo. Exhibitionin sävy on toteava, mutta sen vivahteissa on myös satiirin elementtejä sekä vihjeitä tragediasta.

Joanna Hoggin elokuvia yhdistää riisuttu, tinkimätön naturalismi. Exhibition on kuvattu lähes kokonaan myyntiä odottavassa talossa, joka on sekoitus viileää modernismia ja eksentrisiä ratkaisuja. Luonnonvalossa kuvatut pitkät otokset elävät ja yllättävät. Talosta paljastuu yhä uusia ovia, tiloja, komeroita ja kerroksia, ja kokonaisuutta tekee mieli verrata pitkään avioliittoon. Onko talo turvasatama vai vankila, se jää katsojan päätettäväksi.

Niina Holm (HIFF)