Archipelago (2010)

A reflection on Joanna Hogg's 2010 film. (Spoiler Warning)

Joanna Hogg has become the darling of British cinema in the last 15 years. Her recent films Souvenir and Souvenir 2 catapulted her to the upper echelons of British filmmakers. If Scorsese’s hunting ground is the underbelly of Mafia mobsters, Hogg’s is undoubtedly the terrain of the upper middle class English family. In Archipelago, the layers are slowly revealed through the viewer silently observing the interactions of the family. Hogg has a certain skill in writing this type of dialogue - it seems she has been around this type of family dynamic and has been a first hand witness to the silent horrors often lurking beneath outwardly happy families.

Each scene is presented with a static shot which the characters walk through, criss-cross and traverse. The viewer could be the third sibling of the family, slightly aloof from the rest of the family, observing their interactions. The judgements are made by the viewer but deftly manipulated by Hogg through her stark style of direction and carefully conceptualised dialogue. There is a ghostly quality to the proceedings which is achieved in some part by its location - Tresco - an archipelago of the Isles of Scilly. Few could tell you exactly where these Isles are actually located. It is this lack of geographical certainty which enhances the otherworldly aesthetic of the film.

The dramatic windswept landscapes hint at the familial tempest which is slowly brewing through the first section of the film. Tom Hiddleston’s character Edward arrives on the island with several other passengers by means of large helicopter. He greets his mother Patricia (Kate Fahy) and sister Cynthia (Lydia Leonard) with big hugs. He smiles deeply as he watches his mother and sister cycle back to their holiday home from the vantage point of an open backed Jeep. This is a close family, at least from the outside. The subtle rumblings of the ensuing psychodrama appear in the next scene where brother and sister engage in a conversational dance concerning which room the brother should take - the latent tension simmers underneath the surface of polite Englishness.

Mother, son and daughter.

The father is absent however. We hear his voice through various phone calls he makes to his wife. He never arrives, despite having promised to visit in his first phone call. The implication is that this is a common trait of the father - being absent. The scars from this become clearer to see in the children with each ensuing scene. Hogg plays an excellent bluff on the audience early on nearly convincing us that a local painter named Christopher is in fact their father when we see him dining al fresco with the family. His manners and mode of address means that he blends in with the family seamlessly. However we soon learn he is giving painting lessons to mother and daughter and has built up a relationship with them over the years from frequent visits to the island. He might have been the father and husband the family wished for. His sensitive interactions with Edward portray a son who has been probably devoid of this level of paternal intimacy throughout his life.

Hogg brings class dynamics into the mix through the character of Rose played by Amy Lloyd, a cook hired by the family to prepare and serve their meals. Edward makes attempts to converse with her and clearly feels guilt at having his meals cooked for him. His sister experiences no sense of a moral conundrum - she is the help and she is getting paid and that is that. The mother lies somewhere in between, mildly scolding her son for being overly empathetic and her daughter for being so harsh. The latter is on display in an excruciating restaurant scene in which Cynthia, clearly in a bad mood, causes a fuss with the waitress, then the chef, over how badly cooked her guinea fowl was. Edward shrinks back into himself and the mother is mostly silent. Rose and Christopher are also present, witnessing the social catastrophe unfolding in front of them. The restaurant is completely empty, apart from the family. Edward leaves the table and is shown standing outside, in a state of extreme frustration and despondency.

The family gathering is to wish Edward well on his impending trip to Africa volunteering in areas ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. This becomes a bone of contention for his sister who believes he is abdicating any semblance of responsibility with regards to his career and his girlfriend Chloe. Self doubt about the trip begins to slowly creep into his own mind. The trip itself is somewhat emblematic of a certain type of gap year a child of wealthy parents might make. The White Saviour. The cynic might utter the latter, the less cynical might commend him for his attempt to make this a better world. Edward comes across as sincere. In a touching scene with Christopher, incidentally played by real artist Christopher Baker, he advises Edward that it is perfectly fine to be unsure about such major life decisions. He tells him that life is often a series of mistakes, one in turn teaching us a lesson. This is the fatherly advice Edward craves but probably rarely received.

There are sprinkles of familial harmony however. Edward uses a child’s hand-puppet to ask Cynthia to come downstairs for dinner, lightening her dark mood, post restaurant debacle. Patricia clearly loves her children but her ability to communicate honestly and openly with them is stultified. Stewart Lee, in his own inimitable way, described the film as ‘an art film about middle class people on a disappointing holiday.’ This is factually correct. However what Hogg achieves in Archipelago is significant in that she has created an aesthetic which is clearly her own. The use of the static camera, the depiction of pregnant silences and heavily barbed dialogue paints a vivid and often disquieting portrait of a family. If you have not entered the cinematic world of Joanna Hogg yet, I would recommend this as well as The Souvenir (2019) and its sequel The Souvenir 2 (2021).