Hannah is the
second film of Italian director Andrea Pallaoro—and, according to him, it is
the second film of a trilogy of films he is making which appear to be having a
common thread of a woman internally reassessing her relationship to her
family members over time. One would
often expect a female director to grapple with such subjects but here is a male
director getting inside the female mind.
All three films in the trilogy are original scripts, all co-scripted by him and his friend Orlando Tirado, a team
that has worked not only on the trilogy but also on an early short film called Wunderkammer (2008) again on that very
theme.
His debut film and the first of the trilogy was Medeas (2013) which won him awards at
Venice, Tbilisi, Marrakesh, Nashville, and Palm Spring international film
festivals. His cinematographer Canadian/American
Chayse Irvin won the prestigious Cameraimage cinematography prize and a Special
Jury prize at the Nashville film festival for his contribution in Medeas. Pallaoro’s direction of
Colombian actress Catalina Sandino Moreno won her an acting award at Nashville.
The third film has the title Monica and
is under production.
Hannah (Rampling) alone and sad riding a public bus, reflecting on her predicament |
With an interesting recognition of his debut feature film Medeas, it is not surprising that
Pallaoro’s second feature film Hannah almost
replicates some of the remarkable achievements of his debut film. Hannah’s
lead actress Charlotte Rampling won the deserving Best Actress Award at the Venice
film festival. Once again, cinematographer Canadian/American Chayse Irvin won
an award for his work in another Pallaoro film, this time a Silver Hugo for Hannah from the Chicago film
festival. The citation for that honor is
very appropriate and insightful and reads as follows:
"Hannah tells the story of a very guarded woman and is itself a guarded film, refusing to spell out the motives or contexts behind a lonely woman's behavior. The images, then, must convey feelings and ideas that the screenplay and character will not. Through meticulous composition, unexpected framing, and a finely calibrated color palette, they do just that."
The color captured by cinematographer Irvin, for a shot where Hannah is briefly recalling her good times |
Bleak, muted colours for an important sequence as Hannah walks to throw an important incriminating item in the garbage, when apartments appear to suggest prison cells |
The team of Andrea Pallaoro, Orlando Tirado and Chayse Irvin
obviously constitute a talented trio and they are getting well-deserved
international recognition. (That Hannah has
got a low IMDB user rating is arguably not a fair indicator of its innate quality
as good cinema.)
The worth of Hannah as
a mature work of cinema is apparent in its ability to unspool its tale by
leaving bits and pieces of visuals (sometimes as understated reflected images)
and few spoken words (sometimes of people you never see but only hear) peppered
across the film. An aging husband is preparing to be incarcerated in a prison
for unstated crimes, leaving behind a devoted and elderly wife, in an apartment
where their only other companion is a pet dog.
The obvious questions for many viewers would be what was the
crime that led to the prison sentence of an old and seemingly affable man? Why are the director/ scriptwriters not
revealing it up-front for the viewers? Don’t the old couple have any progeny?
When they do not speak much or show emotions, what are they thinking?
Pallaoro’s style is very close to Ingmar Bergman’s, with one
major difference. While Bergman would
have tended to give considerable emphasis on spoken words in the screenplay,
Pallaoro’s and Tirado’s style uses minimal spoken words and emphasizes
communication through body language, visual clues, reaction of the title
character to strangers and children (such as Hannah’s sudden decision to stop swimming when
children enter the public pool). Both directors use theatre as a secondary
element in their film. Theatre rehearsals and mime are important in Pallaoro’s
film as well as it is in many Bergman films.
Hannah (Rampling) breaks down in the closet toilet reprising Bibi Andersson in Bergman's The Touch (1971) |
Hannah is like a
mystery film, say an Agatha Christie detective tale, where clues are subtly
revealed to the viewer without much dialogue. The viewer is forced to become
the detective connecting the dots—mostly visual and a few spoken lines, often by characters
that occupy only fragments of screen time.
An astute viewer will be able to figure out the crime of Hannah’s
husband without it being spoken. The viewer learns the aged couple do have a
son and grandson. The grandson wants to
meet his grandmother but the son forbids that. The viewer has to figure out the
reason by picking up the clues provided in the film. The viewer has to figure
out why Hannah does not have any friends or why the film begins with a scream.
There have been major films that ended with an anguished scream (Skolimowski’s
1978 film The Shout and Lumet’s 1964
film The Pawnbroker) but Hannah reverses the effect, introducing
the viewer to the scream followed a rather quiet film in contrast to it. The scream,
of course, is pivotal to understanding the film as is the long purposeful walk
towards the end recalling the walk of Eddie Constantine in Godard’s Alphaville. The walk and the end of the walk state more than what Bergman would
have achieved with long conversations. That’s the power of Hannah, the film.
If there is one film that Hannah could remind you of, it would be the 1971 French film director
Pierre Granier-Deferre’s The Chat,
another film about an elderly couple
(played by Simone Signoret and Jean Gabin) where they hardly speak to each
other in their small apartment they share with their cat. (In Hannah, by contrast it’s a dog,)
Hannah's only friend her pet dog--which she gives away to new owners. Human friendship has been lost, possibly because of her past inactions |
When the actors don’t speak much, the acting capabilities
are naturally pronounced to the eye. In Hannah,
Charlotte Rampling is awesome from the seminal scream captured in close-up to
the final silent shot in the metro taken appropriately in a long shot. Her body
language speaks a thousand words. Ms Rampling’s works on screen are varied but
always stunning. Cavani’s The Night
Porter, Visconti’s The Damned,
Ozon’s The Swimming Pool, Andrew Haigh’s 45 years are unforgettable films considerably due to her contributions. Age certainly does not wither her,
picking up best actress awards from Berlin and Venice within a couple of years,
touching the grand age of 70. The scream in Hannah would have won her an award in most festivals.
Hannah is very European
in style. While the film is likely to be remembered for Ms Rampling’s
performance, the film belongs to the trio of Pallaoro, Tirado and Irvin. Watch
out for them; they are indeed talented.
P.S. Pierre
Granier-Deferre’s French film The Cat (1971) discussed in the above
review has been reviewed in detail earlier on this blog. That film won the Best
Actor and Best Actress awards at the Berlin Film Festival, just as Rampling won
for Hannah at the Venice film festival.