ReelWorld Film Festival: The Red House Review - NP Approved

The Red House (2012)

Cast: Lee Stuart, Meng Jia Stuart
Director: Alyx Duncan
Country: New Zealand
Genre: Drama | Romance
Official Site: Here

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the 2014 ReelWorld Film Festival. For more information on the festival visit www.reelworld.ca and follow ReelWorld on Twitter at @ReelWorldFilm.

Alyx Duncan’s debut feature is one of the best first films I’ve ever seen.  She is absolutely assured in everything she does in this film, which is a lot.  She not only wrote and directed it, but she’s also credited as one of the cinematographers and a producer and about half a dozen other jobs, all done well.  She also cast her parents in the only real roles and directed them so well (they are non-professional actors) that I thought the film was a documentary.  I was so convinced of this that I had to find the official page and some reviews to confirm that it was fiction.

The beauty in the simplicity of that story is the unfettered access to true love. 

The story is of Lee (Lee Stuart) and Jia (Meng Jia Stewart), a mixed race couple who have been together for 20 years.  Though they are still separated by a language barrier, that’s about the only thing that separates them.  They intuitively understand each other and at no point does either need clarification of something said.  We see them moving about their small, cluttered house eating, sleeping and working while they alternatively narrate their feelings.  Then, Jai reveals that she is going back to China to look after her aging parents and that Lee will be along after he gets the house in order so it can be rented, since they do not know how long they will be staying in China.

The beauty in the simplicity of that story is the unfettered access to true love.  In the story, Lee saved Jia from drowning 20 years prior and they’ve been together ever since.  They share a bond that goes beyond language and even beyond knowing each other well, which Lee admits that despite 20 years he feels he doesn’t really know Jia.  It’s an introduction of an existential concept that no one ever truly knows another person due to the complexities of the human psyche.  Jia has her own existential ponderings as well, like she doesn’t know how Lee imagines her to be but she can tell when he looks at her that he is seeing his imagined version of her.

I’ve stated how much like a documentary the film looks, but it’s more than that.  The voiceover sounds like narration out of a Werner Herzog doc, commenting on the nature of humanity and life.  And because it is structured like a personal, slice of life doc, the voiceover worked for me, much more than it normally does.  I’ve mentioned before how much random narration annoys me because I don’t know who the people are talking to.  Are they talking to me? If they are, do they know they’re in a movie?  If so, what does that say for the film and is anything to be trusted in it?  These questions didn’t nag me in The Red House at all.  Everything worked so well and these bits of narration from Lee and Jia felt more like access to their minds instead of them addressing the audience.  They aren’t talking to us, they are just thinking.  Duncan structures the screenplay in a way that emulates reality while interjecting bits of internal monologue.  We spend time with Lee and Jia and get to know them, but not intimately.  We get close enough to them to be in awe of their relationship but not close enough to feel like we’re intruding on their lives.

Also lending to the authenticity of the film is the performances by Lee and Meng Jia Stewart.  Their performances are the definition of naturalistic.  

Duncan and her fellow cinematographers also shoot the film to look like we’re watching unfiltered reality.  The only tip offs are some camera moves that aren’t used in documentaries.  These moves were similar to what clued me into Computer Chess (2013)’s fictional nature.  I’m impressed at the processes Duncan used to achieve this.  There is no artifice in lighting or coloring of the film and that lends to its authenticity.

Also lending to the authenticity of the film is the performances by Lee and Meng Jia Stewart.  Their performances are the definition of naturalistic.  Neither one are professional actors yet they give more nuanced performances than most professionals at work today.  Never once does it feel like they were uneasy with the material or that they are trying to act.  They simply exist in these roles that feel based on their lives and their relationship.  Even when the situation is fictional, they don’t betray it with any attempts to play it up.  When they deliver their narration, it’s direct and matter of fact.  They don’t struggle with a single line of it.

That naturalistic quality of the acting has as much to do with Duncan as it does with the actors.  She directs them perfectly, which couldn’t have been easy considering they are her parents.  She gets performances out of them that may not have been able to have been achieved with any other people and she does it without being overt.  She also uses her framing to give us a sense of eavesdropping on them, like their walls do have ears and eyes.  She avoids close-ups in favor of wider long shots to emphasize empty space and to reinforce the tone of close-but-not-too-close she establishes in the script.

The Red House is a thing of beauty.  Its simplicity belies the deeper questions it raises and does not have the arrogance to try and answer.  It deals with the complexity of a long term relationship and the duties of family as well as ponders the questions of life and nature itself.  Duncan has crafted a film that does so much with so little and celebrates life and love.  There is not a false or pretentious note in the film and it all just works so perfectly.  Duncan has achieved something magical with The Red House and I’m eager to see what she comes up with next.