What's the point of it all?

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#36 : A Banquet

Social-comment body horror from debut feature director Ruth Paxton, with Sienna Guillory as the apparently perfect single mother with two daughters, one of whom develops a mysterious eating disorder.

I've heard this is a bit weird, but can't tell you anything more about it.

Oh yes, it's most definitely "a bit weird". There are lots of very strange camera angles and the sound is very strange as well with the weirdest bits being accentuated for no obvious reason.  And food is a constant theme throughout the film - filmed in close-up and often in very stark colour (reds and greens are a favourite).  But mostly, there's.  Very.

Stilted.  And odd.

Dialogue.  

And for a long time, there's no obvious plot.  Yes, as The Guardian says, one of the daughters, Betsey, develops a mysterious eating disorder and there's obviously some kind of supernatural/horror element to it, but it doesn't go out of the way to explain anything.  At first it's annoying, but it does build to a sense of dread - partly because of the writing and direction, but mostly because of the nagging feeling that I was going to watch the whole film and nothing was going to be explained.  

So - did it nail the ending?  Welll, it fashioned quite an intriguing ending which I totally wasn't expecting, but it explained absolutely nothing - if anything, it just introduced more mystery.  I'd say I was not happy about it, but to be honest "unsurprised" was probably my major reaction.  I'm also completely intrigued as to why The Guardian described this as "social-comment body horror" - there's very little social comment and yes, she does have an eating disorder, but a big part of the film is that her body is not affected in the slightest...

Within the confines of the film, it is well acted.  Jessica Alexander is suitably distant as Betsey - she believes she's been chosen and her sense of rapture is well conveyed.   Sienna Guillory as Holly, her mother and Ruby Stokes as Izzy, her sister are both suitably uncertain how to react and Lindsay Duncan is as good as you'd expect as the annoying grandmother.  However, a lot of the time, they're not given an awful lot to do - it just feels like a bit of a waste.

As a whole, this all felt more like an art installation than a film - there are some neat touches at times, but as a whole I just didn't work for me and there are some scenes which felt completely out of place.  I was very much reminded of Censor - it's similarly stylish, intriguing and ultimately unsatisfactory.  I can believe that the director had a grand vision which might make the story make more sense and I'm sure I could read plenty of articles on the internet which would offer up multiple conflicting theories, but that's just not gonna happen.

At time of writing, it's available to stream on Shudder (which I've never even heard of!) and to rent in most of the usual places - and why wouldn't you want to watch it after that glowing recommendation?!?

#37 - An enjoyably thought-provoking film
#35 - Good, but I'm not sure what it adds to anything