[Mods, feel free to move this to a separate thread/Films of 2021, though since the sequel functions as a second part to this film, I figured this would be as good a place as any to write about it]
After the transient nature of scattered scenes that emulated Hogg's selected memory in the first film,
The Souvenir Part II begins with unexpectedly stationary attention to seemingly irrelevant details as Julie recuperates from the shock of her loss at home. It's a staggering opening that brings anyone (everyone by a certain age, I'd think) who's been blindsided by a traumatic event back to that state of heightened/subdued temperaments, where time is slowed, we are physically stagnant and hypervigilant to each object our eyes turn to, the minute gestures and banal conversations that populate the frames of our exhausted recovery. The film then shifts back into fragmented blips of memory, but the meditation on that initial stage is deliberate and respectful to the acuity of life crises without selling it with spectacle.
The residual effects still follow Julie as she encounters objects that produce significance, and people that will not wilt in the search for demanding tangible answers. Julie herself doesn't want to- or cannot- let go of the disorientation and is absorbed in a futile search herself, prompted by these objects, people, intrusive thoughts, feelings, and recollections. So Hogg creates the only authentic second work she can- an unapologetic, intentional decision to formulate meaning through art, through sharing her perspective on fleeting events. The combination of true and false forges a more thorough truth; the reality of our experience looking back on the people that formed us prohibits an impossible objectivity, and is deterministically subjective from our vantage point. Hogg/Julie is empowered to create a tangible document in one of the few ways anyone can (and if only we all had access to that platform of artistic tools, we would).
The film doesn't only focus on this artistic process though, and it would be disingenuous to frame this as a story of the art of processing "loss" when it's also a form of art about "finding"- finding oneself, meaning, an identity of maturity from those we encounter, old and new. We watch Julie attempt to engage in new relationships, and eventually winds up in a sober space where her research tells her she's not ready yet. An earlier scene of that research, however, involves a one-night stand filmed with raw close camera angles, documenting the chaotic act of sex in a jarring alternative to the first film's omission of these scenes entirely. Hogg is not a prude, and we can contrast these relationships to discern that for her the sex with Anthony was not the standout memory of their time together, while it absolutely was for her trialed acclimation back into forcing 'feeling' with this new guy, to escape the uncomfortable numbness permeating her existence. The messy rebound, as she wants to want her emotions to be restored to equilibrium but cannot evade the hyperawareness to her fragile state, is honestly conveyed here in a wildly different manner- from the content to the camera's intimacy. Hogg's flexibility in the first film's style is even more drastically-bent here; she is unrelenting in filming her schematic picture of self-reflexive experience externalized into this schematic picture on celluloid.
The advice she gets from her closest friend is to commit to passion and passion alone, rather than consider the commercial appeal of audiences, as this passion will translate more deeply with audiences' own subjective experiences. Julie continues to observe objects and discover imagery for significance of Anthony, recovering and processing feelings at once. Yes, this is life imitating art in a meta-context as therapy, but we already knew that. The question is whether or not it's self-indulgent, and if that's a negative or a positive avenue for such a personal film to take; a question that is excavated throughout the narrative of
Part II. Memory is authentic only within individualized subjectivity, accepting our compromised limitations to yield infinite possibilities. She is concocting a fantasy that is abstract enough to forge deeper intimacy with the audience. Time is taken to hone in on Julie's mother discussing a sugar jar she made that is imperfect, but personal and a source of great pride. If Julie's film can be that, maybe that's enough.
But there's a road to get to that acceptance for Julie- and this is a great film about collaboration and isolation as two inevitable states of being she oscillates between; whether in the relationship with Anthony or her relationship with her crew- in one scene hurting a friend's feelings by not casting her because she doesn't fit within Julie's vision of the character, and in another, receiving support from a friend only to make a pass and receive an awkward, alienating response. We need support from others to help provide us with feedback, inspiration, and affection, but these are fleeting and we are also destined to endure our thoughts and feelings, and hold onto our perspectives alone. Julie/Hogg has a unique mind that cannot be communicated in fullness with others, and this dissonance is at the heart of the film. Two perspectives simply don't ever align, and this consequential, inherent discord is agonizing for all involved on Julie's student film within this film, especially when one of those points of view is held onto with such fervent rigidity.
Julie is controlling as a director, demanding to capture her emotions and perspective of events meticulously, but (of course) she cannot communicate this verbally to her crew! I love how Hogg self-consciously follows her stand-in in this struggle to explain the relationship dynamics, both laughing at and empathizing with her younger self. Julie wants to show herself as a hostage, which she was, and explains that she was disempowered by Anthony, but she also shamefully admits her codependent lengths of avoidance of truth, and inaction to remove herself from the situation. It's a great pain that will lead to growth in working through these complex thoughts and feelings, looking at herself in hindsight; but for now she's trying to recreate Anthony's psychology and her own, when both are undeniably enigmatic and incommunicable. Hogg is demonstrating the internal struggle of artists to create something authentic, but in doing so there's a secondary, more profound focus on humility.
Humility- the surrender of self, mixes with solipsism, as the incongruities continue- but perhaps authenticity in art necessitates inauthentic artificiality and delusion. I love how one peer from the crew complains about "not knowing what is going on" with fury, self-consciously mirroring Julie's own frustration with the fatalistic incapacity to grasp her own experience in a linear, digestible form. To follow a script may be helpful for the crew to find order in "truth," but it's dishonest to the art she needs to express, which can only be actualized based on impermanent, dynamic shifts in mood- Julie's emotional state and mental imagery
in the moment of filming. This is why Godard's scriptless work is so powerful to some of us, despite the artists making very different films (
I certainly didn't expect to think of Godard while watching this movie!)
Ayoade serves as the opposite kind of filmmaker, showing up with more screen time in a histrionic performance, as someone who is equally controlling of his crew but in a different approach. He needs ultra-attentive specifics from his crew-as-audience to give him a sense of direction where to go in the next scene, while she leaves everything too abstract as ineffable feeling. He needs to be spoonfed what to feel, which obstructs the possibilities of personalized relatedness between the content and the viewer as consumer of the material. Ayoade cannot comprehend that when his peer group say they love his art but cannot articulate 'why', this is not a problem but an affirmation of customized value that cannot be expressed properly in words.
Ultimately, Julie must surrender to the unavoidable condition of grief, and the unattainable answers to our own wants, needs, and sources of our psychology. That doesn't mean the gift, or souvenir, Anthony gave her is not meaningful, but her agency can be empowered without a firm grip on what cannot be accessed in harmony. "You're a human being with life to live.
That's your job," her therapist tells her, and while perhaps a bit hamfisted and concisely-guided, it's an aptly vague and pressing prompt from a therapist, if there ever was one. After watching Julie work through these dissonant impulses throughout the film, the set of the premiere made me emotional without even seeing the film play out. The idea of raising imaginary glasses to those we've lost means everything. It's all we can do, to hold those people in our memory, and allow their lives to have infinite meaning by pausing our consciousnesses on how they've affected ours.
The dream sequence that follows is a showstopping setpiece that admirably refuses to grant us easy signifiers- mimicking the acceptance Julie/Hogg has found around this herself. The only exception is the impotence for catharsis- when Julie asks Anthony "Do you still love me?" which goes unanswered as he dies in front of her. We then skip ahead in time and return to a scene intentionally replicating the party at the start of the first film when Julie first met Anthony, though this is her 30th birthday party and she's finally self-actualized, comfortable in her own skin, wiser, perceptive, and happy.
The final shot through the window, outside of Julie's perspective, directly violates her own earlier reactive micromanagement at the camera setup not capturing her point of view through that very same window. We hear Hogg herself yell, "Cut!" and the camera pans for us to see her film crew filming her story before this film ends. Does this signify growth through letting go, acceptance in art as inherently compromised, a partial surrender of the will, and an admittance and recontextualization of what fantasy can be outside of rigid parameters? Or is it also perhaps an exhibition of further elusivity- the limitations of art, as this film cannot go on forever, cannot bring Anthony back, and cannot actualize her experience fully for us to grasp in totem, or for Hogg to hold with permanence. Her film could have ended on a cathartic memory of growth through the surrogate character of Julie, but no- it must end with Hogg in the midst of her own development in the current moment. The camera is divorced from Hogg and her crew, the fantasy is over, and Hogg couldn't be further away from the lens; out of sight, alone again in life 'in media res', just like all of us. So is it self-indulgent? Sure, but only authentically so.
