The festival’s second Canadian-Eastern European film – in this case, Hungarian – directed by a young woman is Sophy Romvari’s refreshing debut feature Blue Heron, which became a critical darling. It deviates from traditional family depictions foremost through its intimacy: the eight-year-old girl narrator Sasha, who is witnessing her older brother Jeremy’s mental breakdown, is essentially Romvari herself.
The film’s beauty, music and setting of the coastal landscapes and forests of Vancouver all offer something novel, without its pleasing aestheticism never veering into gratuitous territory. The searching camera and striking soundscape create a powerful atmosphere as they follow an emigrant family of four children caught in a hidden crisis.
Blue Heron moves intriguingly and effectively between time periods from the boxy desktop computers of the 1990s to a documentary contemporary feel, when the adult Sasha revisits the past as a researcher. Romvari’s film expands the depictions of memory, as the characters of different time periods exist almost ”nested” within different eras. As with us all, Sasha’s memories might play tricks on her by differing from the video images captured by their father as the beloved Jeremy’s mental illness turned him depressed, mentally paralyzed and self-destructive.
Blue Heron propels SOPHY ROMVARI (b. 1990) into the ranks of the world’s most talented directors in one fell swoop. Although perhaps ”new” isn’t accurate: Romvari’s first feature film did not emerge from a vacuum: she has paved the way for her international breakthrough by making 15 short films over 11 years, many of which have depicted family situations – often her own – and their members. Still Processing (2020) deals with the director’s own grief through photographs of her deceased brothers, while Remembrance of József Romvári (2020) features home videos of Romvari with her grandfather, the Hungarian production designer József Romvári.
Timo Malmi