The Films of Joanna Hogg

Notes on the Six Feature Films directed by Joanna Hogg:

Unrelated (2007)
Archipelago (2010)
Exhibition (2013)
The Souvenir (2019)
The Souvenir: Part II (2021)
The Eternal Daughter (2022)

While viewing Joanna Hogg’s recent film The Eternal Daughter, I noticed that I had never written about any of her films on this blog. This felt like a glaring omission especially since I owned DVDs of her first 3 features Unrelated, Archipelago and Exhibition and saw her films in order of their release. Here finally are some thoughts/notes as a means of correction.

Messy / Strained Relationships

All six of Joanna Hogg’s films depict complicated dynamics of a relationship with brutal honesty. That means, her films don’t shy away from fights, loud arguments between couples and family members that spill out for others to witness. Family tensions are depicted in Unrelated (father-son), Archipelago (mother-sister vs brother), The Eternal Daughter (mother-daughter) while relationships are under a very close microscope in Exhibition (a marriage on the verge of collapse), The Souvenir (toxic male). In majority of these films, the arguments and shouting leave the confines of a bedroom or a dining room but they never leave the space of a villa, house or hotel. That means, her films only examine the impact and fallout of a relationship to those within a closed inner circle and don’t extend to the larger society as a whole.

Joanna Hogg also examines British class differences in the inner circle of these families and their friends. Archipelago stands out in this regard in how a brother and sister differ in their treatment of a hired cook. Edward (Tom Hiddleston) would like to invite their cook Rose (Amy Lloyd) to sit with them at the dinner table but his sister Cynthia (Lydia Leonard) and mother think that is unreasonable. Cynthia even gets upset at Edward’s chats with Rose. Majority of the characters in Hogg's films are financially well off and their elitist behaviour is highlighted in how the characters treat others around them.

Artistic Voice / Challenges

The Souvenir and its sequel, The Souvenir: Part II illustrate the difficulty in making a film starting from the funding process. The films, especially the sequel, highlight the impact a director’s decisions or indecisions can have on the rest of the crew. There are many real life stories about directors shooting a film without a script and such efforts are often lauded as a major achievement but the reality is that there is often a cost impact of wasted film shots or not having a bound script. The Souvenir: Part II shows the frustrations of the cinematographer and rest of the crew in not having clear instructions on where the camera must be placed.

Exhibition examines the creative challenges that contemporary artists have and depicts the equivalent of a writer’s block on an artist (art block). The challenges in expressing one’s vision and having others understand it ties this film to that of the two Souvenir films.

3 year Timeline

There was an equal 3 year gap between the release of her first 3 features: Unrelated,  Archipelago and Exhibition. Then Hogg didn’t release a film for a 6 year gap but the remaining three films were all released within a span of 3 years. This quick release of 3 films in 3 years means that overall, she has maintained a consistent output over the 6 features.

Other Notes

The two Souvenir films have gotten plenty of critical acclaim but Unrelated remains my favourite Joanna Hogg film. Even though it is her debut film, Unrelated is a breath of fresh air compared to how characters are depicted in other British films. Joanna Hogg’s contemplative style allows audience to infer their own sentiments about characters based on snippets of dialogue, body language and how the characters behave. I still recall feeling that Unrelated heralded the arrival of a new director to watch. With just a single feature film to go off, it wasn’t clear what direction her other films would take. Now revisiting Unrelated after having seen all her other features allows me to see how this film fits in with her style. There is a sense of autobiographical element to all her films filtered via focus on relationships and class differences of her characters. We first see this in Unrelated and she expands on this in the subsequent five features.

Tom Hiddleston may be a familiar name now but it is important to note that he made his feature film debut in Hogg’s Unrelated. His second feature film happened to be Joanna Hogg’s second directorial feature Archipelago.

Reference Reading:

Seventh Row on Joanna Hogg.

Hillary Weston Interview on Criterion.

Rachael Rakes on her first 3 features.