Peddling in absolutes rarely results in good writing – but it can sometimes be necessary to dip into the pool of hyperbole on occasion, especially when it is on the subject of someone who deserves the attention. Joanna Hogg is truly one of our greatest working filmmakers, and her recent re-emergence through her remarkable The Souvenir duology reminded us of her incredible merits as both a storyteller and visual stylist, with her self-reflective ode to her formative years as a young female filmmaker in an industry dominated by her male counterparts that were uniformly offered much better opportunities being amongst the best films of their respective years. Having said this, she may have just created her most impactful work in the form of The Eternal Daughter, which is covertly a continuation of the story of Julie, making this the final entry into a secret trilogy in which Hogg examines her own past in the form of a series of recollections, this time looking at a few themes that she had yet to fully explore in her previous films, but which were always factors in how she constructed this semi-autobiographical project that sees her recounting her own experiences through her adult life, in a thinly-veiled demonstration of her existential and artistic quandaries. These all manifest so beautifully and with such exquisite sophistication in this chilling but profoundly beautiful drama, a torrent of mysteries and curiosities that define her identity, tenderly put in place by a filmmaker whose approach to storytelling is extremely simple but also deeply peculiar in terms of the ideas she is actively representing. It’s a quietly strange and deeply mournful film with several unexpected components, all woven together by the director’s very distinct style of blending the past and present into a revolving series of unsettling moments, each becoming more challenging than the one that proceeded it, leading to a very complex but deeply profound exploration of the human condition, from one artist’s unique perspective.

Through the two parts of The Souvenir, Hogg explored certain themes, but one that she seemed interested in expanding on, but would always skirt around in a way where there wasn’t too much substance, was that of motherhood. The relationship between Julie, a young woman who is trying to assimilate herself into the life of bohemian art, and her mother Rosalind, who represented the high society values that her daughter was so invested in concealing without actively abandoning, always loomed over the story, but was never fully discussed in a way that felt like it was a priority for Hogg. This seemed intentional, as The Eternal Daughter is essentially the accumulation of all of those themes, with the idea of youthful creation and the attempts to realize one’s ambitions now being replaced with the theme of age, whereby we mature into a place where we are forced to reconcile our personal and professional lives, looking back at our more naive days and trying to contextualize them in relation to the people who defined us from our earliest days. The mother-daughter dynamic is one that Hogg was certainly very interested in exploring, and even when it was not a priority in terms of the narrative of The Souvenir, she does make the time to expand on these ideas here, quietly reflecting on her own relationship with her mother in what we soon discover were her final days, the attempts to forge lasting connections at the last minute, while still making up for lost time. Life is very fleeting, and Hogg realizes the fragility of time (in the span of only three or four years, she managed to voyage through almost her entire adult life through three films, which is not an easy accomplishment when we realize the scope of detail contained within each one of these stories), and her reflections on the relationship she had with her mother, which was certainly loving for the most part, but had overtures of unresolved tension that Hogg was trying to work through in a constructive way, make for a beautiful and poetic examination of two individuals who are united by an unbreakable bond, but yet seem to be living entirely different lives based on the generational divide that keeps them from ever fully understanding one another.

Through her continued attempts to exhume the spirits of her past and reconfigure them into a poignant examination of her identity, Hogg has frequently enlisted the aid of her friend Tilda Swinton, who has always played an integral role in the director’s growth as an artist, starring in her very first student film (the creation of which is the foundation for The Souvenir Part II), and having a decades-long personal and professional relationship, which culminated in this film, which is quite literally entirely constructed around Swinton. In The Eternal Daughter, she is playing dual roles, taking on the parts of both Julie and Rosalind, and while it is far from the first time an actor has portrayed multiple roles for the sake of some artistic commentary (it isn’t even the first time Swinton herself has played multiple roles in the same film – she has carved herself quite a decent niche in this regard), it is a particularly unique case insofar as it creates the illusion that we are seeing two different actors, despite the fact that very little is done to transform Swinton into the two characters, outside of slightly different costuming and makeup. This is a testament to not only her impeccable talents and ability to utilize her chameleonic sensibilities, but also to Hogg’s very unique artistic vision. It may seem trivial at first to have both characters played by the same actor, but there is a purpose behind it, and once we reach the revelation (in which even the most cynical viewer is likely to be taken aback by the surprise), the merits of the choice are made quite clear. Swinton is quite simply one of our greatest living performers, and whether playing one of the many eccentric characters that have defined her career, or taking on a more subtle role, she is undeniably excellent. Regardless of the director at the helm, she is always deeply committed to her roles, and spends so much time developing her characters – but it becomes even more spellbinding when she is collaborating with a director that implicitly understands her process and abilities – and few seem to have as much of a grasp on Swinton and her exceptional gifts than the person who helped introduce her into the profession. The Eternal Daughter features one of Swinton’s most compelling performances – but when your entire career is defined by one’s ability to constantly reinvent your style and push the boundaries of one’s craft, is this a surprise?

Memory has always been a very important theme for Hogg, especially since her recent re-emergence into the world of filmmaking. She is a deeply reflective filmmaker whose interests are always on revisiting the past. This is a common trope for many filmmakers, and Hogg is not some pioneer simply because she focuses on constructing stories formed from her own personal recollections, which are subsequently filtered through her very unique perspective as an artist. The difference is that she approaches memory with a distinctly straightforward gaze – she’s not one to show any interest in sentimentality, and while there are bursts of emotion in her films, they are rather stoic affairs, works that stand in quiet contemplation of deeper themes, never becoming too intent on excess in a way that feels like they’re just drawing on emotions for the sake of making the viewer feel a certain sensation. The Eternal Daughter is very much a quiet endeavour, and all of the emotions come about authentically, sometimes in a manner so subtle we barely even notice them. It’s most appropriate to describe this film as a visual poem about memory, a series of foggy recollections that present as a profound elegy for the past, told by someone who is not melancholic about her memories, but rather sees them as a fundamental part of her identity, insofar as she needs to revisit them in isolation to understand how each one of them factored into her growing identity, both as an artist and woman, which is a concept that underpins every scene in this film. Hogg constructs the film by piecing together fragments of the past, usually relying on the dialogue between the two main characters (who we soon learn at the same person, in one of the most obvious but still deeply heartwrenching twists in modern cinema) – and it all exemplifies Hogg’s artistic process of always looking inward when conceiving of a film, since it is almost entirely likely that whatever impels someone to tell a story of any personal value has its roots within them, and if they are able to address them, even in only a small way, the resulting film will only be a more rich, evocative experience in every way.

The Eternal Daughter is a film that is difficult to fully comprehend at first, and it takes some time for the viewer to acclimate to the cold, clinical world that serves as the home for her characters. However, it is undeniable that Hogg has never been a filmmaker who chooses to be obtuse for the sake of subversion, but it’s important to always approach her films without any expectation of what we are going to find on the other side. She regularly employs the premise of nothing being quite as it seems, and The Eternal Daughter focuses on a few fundamental ideas that we may expect, albeit not in such a distinct form. Many have described this film as a ghost story – and both literally and metaphorically, we find these characters being haunted, whether by unseen entities that occupy this hotel, or by the unnerving weight of the past, which slowly begins to encroach on their sense of security. Hogg is constantly using common genre tropes in the construction of the film, employing elements of psychological thrillers and quiet melodrama to create this stunning account of a woman’s search for meaning in the past. We are invited to unearth the mysteries that surround this place (with the hotel itself becoming a character of its own), as well as looking into the lives of these characters, whose own existence is far less logical than it would appear on the surface. We don’t quite understand the purpose of their visit to the eerie hotel in which The Eternal Daughter takes place until quite late into the film – and by the time we reach that point, we have already encountered many challenging concepts around the relationship between these two women and their own individual existential dilemmas. It can be quite unsettling, and Hogg is definitely working in a key very much aligned more with horror than anything else – so logically it is just a matter of rationalizing what we are seeing and combining it with our own internal interpretation of these intimidating themes, which are simultaneously beautiful and harrowing, a contradiction that is certainly not wasted on Hogg as she voyages through her past in the construction of this achingly beautiful film.

Making our way through the world of The Eternal Daughter is not an easy task – so much of this film feels impenetrable, and often comes across as deeply unsettling, which is both purposeful and very strange, especially since this is a film that does its best to not be defined by its peculiarities, instead finding value in the more intricate moments of humanity that occur in between major occurrences. However, Hogg is also not a filmmaker that ever intends to make her stories all that easy to understand, or at least refuses to create placid narratives that follow a predictable structure and have an obvious conclusion. Instead, she handcrafts a memorable mystery film, a story of a daughter coming to terms with the past over the course of a few days she spends with her mother, whose own recollections about a particular place form the foundation for many of their conversations, which all ultimately become an exercise in memory, an attempt to assemble the disparate fragments of the past in a way that is valuable in our continued pursuit of some understanding of our own individual journeys. It is very ethereal, and some elements are left entirely open-ended, without any resolution that helps us understand exactly what the director meant when it came to certain themes. All of this is very much the result of Hogg’s increasing desire to plumb the emotional depths of her own past, especially in the years following her solid foray into filmmaking, where her maturity forced her to reconsider certain aspects of life that seemed inconsequential in her days of reckless, youthful ennui. This is such a strange film, but its rich, sumptuous understanding of the human condition sets a solid foundation for this fascinating curio of a film, a simple and effective psychological drama that gives us a glimpse into the director’s mind, in terms of both her artistic outlook and her existential perspective, which create a rich and meaningful tapestry of human memory, quiet and resilient in its dedication to certain bespoke themes that ultimately become the basis for a truly astonishing work of metafictional art.