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Anemone
Supporting his son Ronan Day-Lewis’ directing debut with a collaborative writing effort, Daniel Day-Lewis comes out of his eight-year retirement to present a bravura performance in Anemone. The film screened as a world premiere in the Spotlight section of the 63rd New York Film Festival.
The film resonates with power. The eye-popping natural landscapes captured by Ben Fordesman’s cinematography stun with heightened visual imagery. The striking, archetypal symbols illuminate redemptive themes. Day-Lewis uses them to suggest that sacrifice, faith and love can conquer the nihilistic evils visited upon Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis) and ultimately his entire family.
Finally, the emotionally powerful, acute performances, especially by Daniel Day-Lewis, and by Sean Bean as Jem, help create riveting and memorable cinema.
The significance of the film’s title
The title Anemone derives from the anemone flower’s varied symbolic meanings. One iteration relates to the Greek myth of Aphrodite, whose mourning tears, shed after her lover Adonis’ death, fell on the ground and blossomed into anemones, also called “windflowers.” Anemone petals open in spring and are scattered on the wind. Possibly representing purity, innocence, honesty and new beginnings, the film’s white anemones grow abundantly in the Northern England woodland setting where reclusive Ray makes his home.
In a rustic retreat Ray lives hermit-like, in self-isolation, alienated from his family. Then one day, his brother Jem, prompted by Jem’s wife Nessa (Samantha Morton), mysteriously arrives. Gradually through dialogue and rough interactions, heavy with long silences, the film reveals answers to the mysteries of the estranged family, including searing past events. Finally we understand their motivations and why their bonds remain close despite the estrangement. By the conclusion, family restoration and reconciliation begins.
The backstory unspools slowly
The backstory requires the audience’s patience. We see Ray’s emotional outbursts. They reveal his decades-long internal conflict about not standing up to the perpetrators who victimized him. Neither Jem nor Nessa, who is actually Ray’s former girlfriend and whom Jem married after Ray abandoned her and their son, knows his secrets. But the revelations of abuse slowly spill out of Ray, as Jem lives with him, enduring his ill treatment and rage.
Each brief teasing-out of pain-laced information that Jay spews impacts Jem. With strength and understanding from his faith, Jem puts up with Ray. Each segment of Jay’s story moves us deeper into Jay’s soul and Jem’s acceptance. Cleverly, by listening to his brother and encouraging him to speak, Jem breaks down Ray’s resistance.
The brothers trigger and manipulate each other with their emotional releases. Once set off, the revelations, full of anguish and subtext, fall in slow motion like dominoes. Then, climactic sequences augment to an explosive series of events. One, a treacherous wind- and hailstorm, represents the subterranean rage and turmoil which all of the characters must expurgate before they can heal and come together.
A life of suffering and expiation
Throughout Jay’s life the patriarchal institutions he trusted betrayed and abused him. From his home life (his father), to the church (a cleric), and the military (his immediate superiors), emotional blows attack his soul and psyche. The military makes an example of him. Not only was the abuse unjustified and misunderstood, the perpetrators covered it up and forced his silence. This cruel, forced complicity makes his life a misery in a perpetuating cycle of guilt and shame.
So he can’t discuss what happened, and he refuses to get help in therapy. Instead, he escapes into nature for solace and peace.
Neglecting Jem, Nessa, and his son Brian, who is grown and needs him, Jay perpetrates psychological violence on them. None of them understands Jay’s abandonment. Sadly, Ray’s absence and rejection shape Brian’s life. Embittered and violent, he endangers himself and others.
How Day-Lewis portrays Ray’s epiphany through Jem’s love occurs via an indirect line of storytelling, through Ray’s monologues and the edgy dialogue between Jem and Ray. By alternating scenes of Nessa and Brian in the city with the brothers in the forest, we realize that time is of the essence. Jem must convince Ray to return to their home to make amends with his son Brian as soon as possible because of a looming threat.
The slow movement through the beginning dialogue could have been sped up, the silences trimmed. But the quiet between the brothers is there for a reason, whether critics or audience members “get it” or not. They reveal an otherworldly, almost telepathic bond. Likewise, on another level Ray’s son Brian connects with his father spiritually, though they are miles apart. The director underscores this through Nessa, who understands that father and son need each other. Nessa encourages Jem to bring Ray home to Brian. Symbolic visual imagery, too, suggests the spiritual bond between father and son.
In Anemone, the themes run deep, as the the filmmakers explore how love covers a multitude of hurts and wrongdoings.
Anemone will be more widely released on October 10 in select theaters.
