Life is tough but routine - until a ship from the Citadel, a city state where the wealthy few live in comfort, crashlands nearby.
Seeing a potential escape for her and her father, Vesper brings the only survivor (Rosy McEwen) home to convalesce.
But her new guest has a secret that makes Vesper a target for the Citadel and her tyrannical uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan)…
Anchored by Rafiella Chapman’s superb performance, Vesper is a strong addition to the post-apocalyptic genre.
Directed by Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper, Vesper manages to evoke a wider world without showing a lot. There are some visual effects, but most of this future is created from set design and evocative locations.
The film’s apocalypse is based on environmental contamination - this world is swampy and filled with new and dangerous plants, the products of man’s attempt to genetically evolve beyond climate change.
The film is beautifully photographed by Feliksas Abrukauskas, with lots of soft light and muted colour palette, evoking a world that is not necessarily dying, but transforming into something new and alien.
One of the most striking aspects of Vesper’s design aesthetic is its visualisation of technology is more organic than mechanical - when Jonas sabotages Darius’s drone, its innards are a mass of pulsating tissue.
Chapman’s performance - taciturn yet with the naïveté and excitement of youth, is the pulsing heart of the movie.
Brake, Marsan and McEwen provide solid support, but for most of the movie, we are following Vesper as she charts her way through this world alone.
Thematically, Vesper is familiar in its coming-of-age narrative - in the end, she has to learn to let go and begins to think differently.
More importantly, the dramatic construction is solid and prevents the film from being an exercise in production design.
The film’s resolution is boosted by what follows.
In an extended, wordless coda, she becomes the leader of a new community of children. She follows the mysterious pilgrims to finally learn what they are doing. And she finally makes a choice to reject the false promise of the Citadel.
Narratively, Vesper is not that original but that is irrelevant. Good performances and a strong sense of world-building make Vesper worth a look.
No comments:
Post a Comment