The Souvenir: Part II

A melancholy and beautifully acted film with a superb cast. I loved Part 1 and loved this one equally. An engrossing and totally believable experience.

In 2019, The Souvenir received near-uniform acclaim from the so-called especializad critic, and when I actually watched the film, I was quite surprised at how sterile it actually was. It's nothing new of course, the critics and I don't usually see eye to eye, but that the same thing happened to me with both films, makes me wonder if it was really me who missed something. I'm not sure what prompted the director to believe this story deserved a sequel. Nothing in the first part's story hinted that anything more was needed. But here we are, and bottom line what I couldn't get out of my mind is that The Souvenir Part II is basically the idealization of post-tragedy events. Writer/director Joanna Hogg picks up this story based on her real life right where the first film ended. But this one focuses, as expected, on how her main character processes her emotions over the loss she suffered in the first film, but this is where the fundamental flaw of the film is revealed and this has to do with her character and her own internal conflicts, both personal and professional with her working on her thesis as a film student, the whole in-depth monologue may have more than clear meaning to its creator, but what about the viewers? Joanna Hogg exposes an interesting story that unfortunately neither she, nor her protagonist manage to externalize in a way that means more than what it means to her. It's still a good film, and I actually liked it better than the first part, but I also think that a lot of the praise received is undeserved.

The Emperor; naked and unwashed. It’s perfectly obvious that the characters in this film are presented as avant-garde and self obsessed bores. I found it embarrassing to behold because you’re forced to accept the characters’ self destructive behaviour as acceptable. In this unreal world most people smoke heavily and hold their cigarettes as a flag of supposed sophistication with nobody aware they’re headed for a future drowning in their own phlegm. The Loachesque free flow of overlapping conversations comes across as just copying Loach and is just annoying and uninteresting. I cannot believe this ever got made! In this ghastly world, pale and ghastly people wander about like a population made up of escapees from a psych ward. Nothing normal happens here, despite the thin veil of an attempt at normality by letting the cast free to improvise, the viewer has to observe stupid people pretending they’re tortured geniuses. The only torture actually happening is the poor audience on the rack. Unbelievably, and presumably too weak to counter the first critic who sees this as an opportunity to say the emperor is robed in light, all junior critics join in the nonsense. Even after his arrest for public indecency these people are in denial and are queuing up to visit the deluded monarch in the local loony bin. Not buying it.

We walked out after the first hour. The film makers didn’t create this with an audience in mind. They should have spared us the distribution and kept it for their own private parties. Self indulgent pablum.

BORING yet another stupid naval gazing self congratulatory crap film that the critics love for some reason. Don’t waste your time or money.