Cold Summer, A

Synopsis: When Tia (Olivia Pigeot) has her handbag stolen by a junkie, she meets Bobby (Teo Gebert) who is living in his car after his marriage breaks down. They soon begin a relationship based predominantly on wild sex and drinking. Shortly after, Tia meets an old school friend Phaedra (Susan Prior), a trusting and simple girl who quickly becomes her close friend and confidante. Phaedra, despite a tragic loss, holds firm to her belief in love and commitment. But when Tia’s self-destructive and decadent ways start to affect Phaedra it is time for them all to take a deep look at their lives.

This film is quite remarkable in that the script was heavily drawn from experiences the director and the three actors were going through at the time. After living together and shooting improvised scenes, the four transcribed these into a script, which resonates with the intensity of the reality they were experiencing. Some people hate this Dogme-style of raw hand-held film making, but as with several other recent films, it serves to bring the intensity of the characters’ emotions up close in a searingly revealing and confronting way. The jump-cut editing contributes to the immediacy of mood, while Claire Jordan’s wonderful string quartet score serves to enhance it.

From the opening scene, where we see Tia and Bobby running through bleak blue-tinted streets, the despair and coldness of their lives is established. As Bobby and Tia meet, the film’s defining lines are spoken: Tia says, “You haven’t lost your handbag with your life in it”, to which Bobby retorts, “No, I’ve lost my life.” In many ways all three characters’ lives are lost, and we gradually see what has caused the anguish, what each is trying to hide, and the raw vulnerable individual that lies beneath the pretence.

A film of this nature is dialogue driven and so much depends upon the quality of the dialogue and the actors’ abilities to make it live for us. Many moments in life are so strangely and intimately embarrassing, and the scripting of this film captures them in a rare and truthful way. The actors all excel in showing subtle changes of emotion, while the film uncompromisingly presents the character’s flawed lives, which alternately make us laugh, cringe and weep. A Cold Summer is truly an incisive film about some of life’s critical personal issues: self awareness, honesty and connection.

 

 

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