After THE RIDER and NOMADLAND, Chloé Zhao arrived at the cineast Mount Olympus. THE RIDER was the better film, but NOMADLAND won the Academy Awards, also because of Frances McDormand’s star power. Then came the catastrophe, which probably only turned out to be relatively mild because people who like Chloé Zhao's films usually don't watch "Marvel" superhero movies. THE ETERNALS was a bad idea from the start, the original comic was boring, a product of its time, when everything bad about youth was blamed on soul-corrupting comics, and publishers defended themselves by incorporating all sorts of educational elements into the comics, such as the ancient pantheon as superheroes, "Illustrated Classics," and so on. Zhao’s film was meant to win over a young, queer target group for Marvel, but they weren’t interested in the spry elders Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek as goddesses.

Zhao’s new film HAMNET is a coup, like an antithesis of her earlier films which had great images but very restrained acting. It was about big feelings that arise from understatement. HAMNET does the opposite. The feelings are still big, but the means employed are almost an attempt to surpass Expressionism in expression.

The main thesis of the film, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, is that Shakespeare is processing the pain of losing his son in Hamlet. William Shakespeare did have a young son who died who was called Hamnet. Zhao isn’t as interested in William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) as she is in his wife Anne Hatheway who is called Agnes here and is sort of a half mythical force of nature, partly a rural person, part witch, part sexy naif, part embodied passion. The woman as a pure creature of affect is actually an old patriarchal trope. However, it allows Chloé Zhao and her protagonist Jessie Buckley to abandon all restraint and act and direct as excessively as possible. Magic is at play, ghosts and soul swapping are hinted at, and ancient curses and incantations are uttered. Chloé Zhao has concocted a witches brew that overflows. The film becomes a balancing act between the sublime and the involuntarily funny, which can easily happen when playing with excess. Zhao most likely took that into consideration. You can love this film, you can find it silly or problematic, but it is a completely liberated attempt at affect cinema all the same.

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy