"Brennan and Paetz construct the film as an object of constant friction. We simultaneously follow the production of the fictional film and the inner turmoil of its author. What is at stake is not only the representation of abuse, but the way in which this representation is filtered, corrected, softened, and appropriated by a chain of male voices – producers, financiers, consultants – who insist on teaching the filmmaker how to make the pain “marketable” or “appealing.” For some, abuse needs to be shown explicitly to work. Violence then shifts: it is no longer just that of the initial event, but that of its translation into a system that claims aesthetic and moral authority.
And there is something profoundly insightful in the way the film reveals this process. The protagonist's emotions never fully belong to her; they pass through successive layers of male interpretation and control. The act of giving voice to a woman ends up, paradoxically, reproducing the silencing it intends to denounce. The viewer is never placed in a comfortable position, and the film offers no appeasing answers either. It prefers to dwell in ambiguity, allowing the guilt of the director, in the film being made, and ours, as complicit viewers, to accumulate without a catharsis to resolve its tensions." @wellvis@cinema7arte
Gloves etc• @behindtheblinds on news stands • thank you for the gorge shoot and chat •
Interview by Martin Onufrowicz @pm.onufrowicz Photography by Jack Snell @jacksnell Fashion by Steven Huang @_stevenhuang EIC Michael Marson @badmickey Casting by Imagemachine cs @imagemachine_cs Grooming by Linus Johansson @hairbylinus
Set design by George Lewin @georgelewinstudio
Photographer’s assistant Freddie Hare Stylist’s assistant Nathan Fox Set design assistant Anna Minchell
