VIFF 2021: Benediction
VIFF 2021Terence Davies' long-awaited and long-overdue directorial effort Benediction will be adored by fans of the auteurs' previous work and for those in need of an unconventional biopic. Yet, the film is perhaps too niche and indulgent for casual audiences to both access or feel impressed.
First things first, with Davies’ almost unpenetrable and non-conforming attitude, the aesthetic and production offers a distinctive and unique palette to proceedings. Not necessarily through the cinematic quality, with only a slight over-indulgent in aesthetic crafted by Alex Mackie's edit but more so in terms of endearment. It is clear from the first frame that Davies has a passion for this material, and such rubs off quite effectively in all corners of the production.
The composition of the image is constantly immersive, with Director of Photography Nicola Daley orchestrating a tight and never conforming image of close-ups throughout that attach the viewer to the emotive stance of its characters, a stance in which is unable to be contextually external, but due to the near-perfect performance and James Bond-hopeful Jack Lowden, such emotive technique and expression is expertly curated and produced. Said emotions boil and brood, yet evolve from internalised to externalised depiction, and while that, in the long run, loses steam in anticipation and sensual emotive power, it allows more expression in the screenplay and anguish in performance within the context of developing relationships and growth.
This is arguably where the rather strange and evocative edit from Alex Mackie comes into fruition. Before long, it is revealed that there are two narratives transpiring here: one with Lowden's Siegfried Sassoon and one in the relative present, produced by Peter Capaldi, as an older Siegfried Sassoon. This is never really an issue, but the two narratives have a dissonance of not feeling connected or having an equilibrium of sorts. Granted, this offers a slight indifference, as the former is given far more weight to work with and, ultimately, the latter is served with the allocated depth to produce a turn in the feature’s more sombre sequences of pain and guilt. An attribute that is not overly fulfilled is that Capaldi’s performance feels like a prologue and epilogue to proceedings but is used to cut back and forth between the substance of Lowden’s in between the midst of real flavour and emotive power.
Made slightly more disconnected is the form of edit in Lowden's sequences. Crafted in a tone that feels pierced and thrown together to the degree that it facilitates a non-cyclical nature, this ultimately feels like a conscious decision from Davies and the editor Mackie to propose a unique palette of narrative form – arguably the feature’s most unique but abrasive element that will perhaps hinge potential audiences in being able to sit through this piece or push it away. It is a risk that is still unsure in itself but is still a rather impressive attribute to take in consideration of the quintessential conventional biopic that audiences are accustomed.
It will be a shame if the latter comes to fruition, as Davies' Benediction has something quite tender and beautiful, to say, in its story of Siegfried Sassoon but also its emotive stance on fragility and relationships. While said passion might not be intoxicating on a sizable collective level with wider audiences, those who manage to find solace in this feature, namely its exploration of being a homosexual in the early 20th century or the crippling anxiety and tragedy of affection and love, will find solace and beauty in the material that Davies has created in Benediction.
