At Cannes, Joanna Hogg's 'The Souvenir Part II' stands out

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Joanna Hogg poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Souvenir- Part II' at the 74th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Thursday, July 8, 2021. As common as sequels are in summer, they rarely find a place at the Cannes Film Festival. But Joanna Hogg's "The Souvenir Part II" is no franchise entry. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

CANNES ā€“ Joanna Hogg is sitting on a hotel balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, but what she'd really like to be doing is swimming in it.

The night before, Hogg premiered her film ā€œThe Souvenir Part IIā€ at the Cannes Film Festival. Sequels may be a regular part of summer, but they rarely make it to Cannes. Yet ā€œThe Souvenirā€ is no usual two-parter.

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Together, the movies are a sublime, singular work of semi-autobiography ā€” a coming-of-age self-portrait reflected through time and cinema. They're based on a period in Hogg's life in the late '80s when she was in film school in London.

In part one, a romance with an older man who has a hidden drug addiction ends tragically. In part two, Julie devotes herself to making her final student film about that experience while processing her grief. In both, Honor Swinton Byrne plays a slightly fictionalized version of Hogg when she was younger; Byrneā€™s real-life mother, Tilda Swinton, plays her mom.

The movies were written together as one piece, spread across two films. And there's very little like them.

ā€œI donā€™t even feel sure I have completed it,ā€ Hogg says, a little surprised to feel that way. ā€œItā€™s funny, because I have completed it. Iā€™m not making another part. I donā€™t know that itā€™s really dawned on me that itā€™s finished.ā€

ā€œThe Souvenir Part II" has been one of the clear standouts at the Cannes Film Festival. It played in the Directorsā€™ Fortnight, which runs parallel to the Cannes official selection. It's a hushed, formally composed film that played down the Croisette from Cannes' central Palais.

Still, few movies here have spawned as much fawning over. Hogg's project has already attracted a wide array of admirers (Martin Scorsese is an executive producer of both films). But ā€œThe Souvenir Part II,ā€ which a24 will release, only enhances Hogg's achievement.

ā€œIā€™ve rediscovered a way of making films that I enjoyed when I was at film school before I got sucked into television," says the 61-year-old Hogg, who didn't make her feature directorial debut until 2007's ā€œUnrelated.ā€ ā€œIt was the making of the film within the film within the film ā€” I donā€™t know how many inside boxes there are.ā€

The hall-of-mirrors nature of ā€œThe Souvenirā€ only gets weirder. Tilda Swinton, an old friend of the director's, starred in Hogg's original 1986 short film, titled ā€œCaprice.ā€ In ā€œThe Souvenir Part II,ā€ Byrne wears some of her mother's clothes from that time. After the first Cannes screening of the film, Swinton said emphatically, "It was a trip.ā€

Hogg acknowledges that even for her the lines between memory and fiction have blurred. Toward the end of ā€œPart II,ā€ Julie is interviewed about her student film ā€” a scene that Hogg feels being replayed for herself.

ā€œI almost feel like Iā€™m inside a film as Iā€™m talking to you,ā€ Hogg says, laughing. ā€œWe have Julia being interviewed, and sheā€™s saying exact words that I said in an interview in the late ā€™80s. Itā€™s too weird. Maybe Iā€™m dreaming. Maybe this is a film.ā€

But if there's so much still unclear for Hogg about her experience completing ā€œThe Souvenir,ā€ what's absolutely uncomplicated is that, 35 years later, she's fully realized herself as a filmmaker.

ā€œI feel more emboldened,ā€ says Hogg. ā€œI seem on the surface to be quite reserved and a bit shy ā€” that's how I feel, anyway. But when it comes to making my work, I'm like a dog with a bone. It's my lifeblood.ā€

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP


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