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Sophy Romvari\u2019s movies are slippery things. The Canadian filmmaker already has something of a\u00a0cult following among very-online cinephiles despite only just having made her debut feature. The film,\u00a0<\/span>Blue Heron<\/i>, is a\u00a0sun-bleached portrait of a\u00a0dysfunctional family of six, told through a\u00a0series of hazy pre-millennial memories following their migration from Hungary. The territory isn\u2019t exactly new for Romvari, whose short films \u2013 notably 2020<\/span>\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Still Processing\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0<\/span>Remembrance of J\u00f3zsef Romv\u00e1ri<\/i> as well as\u00a0<\/span>Nine Behind\u00a0<\/i>(2016<\/span>) \u2013 also employ her family history to establish a\u00a0cinematic space between docufiction, autobiography and fantasy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But the new film, which premiered last month to near-unanimous critical praise in Locarno (where it also scooped up the First Feature Award) is the broadest, most detailed realisation of her ideas yet. Shot by Maya Bankovic on location in Vancouver Island, each frame is cool-toned yet resplendent: lush, measured landscapes that express a\u00a0penchant for studied angles and complementary colours. In this reconstructed fictionalisation of a\u00a0life, the images are striking and often surprising, staged with the sensibility of a\u00a0curious documentarian.<\/span><\/p>\n Blue Heron\u00a0<\/i>is titled after a\u00a0bird that, one diegetic nature programme tells us, has an increasingly weaker bond with its children relative to their age. Troubled teen Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) is the older brother of Henry (Liam Serg), Felix (Preston Drabble), and the eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven), Romvari\u2019s self-insert through whose perspective the story is primarily told.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Their parents (Iring\u00f3 R\u00e9ti and \u00c1d\u00e1m Tompa) struggle to control Jeremy \u2013 the only child of the four from their mother\u2019s first marriage \u2013 as the ways in which he acts out become more and more concerning. Lanky, sullen, and mostly non-verbal, Jeremy\u2019s attitude swings wildly between cautiously playful and willfuly destructive. He disappears for extended periods and shoplifts, pretends to be dead on the front steps, punches his bare fist through a\u00a0window pane in the middle of the night; he skulks over the roof of the house and occasionally threatens to burn it\u00a0down.<\/span><\/p>\n The professionals they consult are unable to provide a\u00a0diagnosis, or really any actionable guidance, though they note Jeremy shows signs of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD<\/span>): a\u00a0condition that encompasses a\u00a0pattern of anger and irritability toward parents and other authority figures, as well as spiteful, revenge-seeking behaviour. \u200b\u201c<\/span>My mom used to say there\u2019s no movie that gets at what we went through, and that planted a\u00a0seed in me very young to make the movie that she wished existed then,\u201d Romvari told\u00a0<\/span>The Globe and Mail<\/a> in August, noting that at a\u00a0young age she absorbed the \u200b\u201c<\/span>aesthetic desires\u201d of her parents, who had a\u00a0great affection for art but, \u200b\u201c<\/span>as immigrants, were not practising artists.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the film, her father tenderly documents the antics of his young children, keeping a\u00a0camcorder trained on them as they bounce on trampolines and play in the sprinklers, shrieking with delight. Her mother directs the blame for Jeremy\u2019s actions inward: \u200b\u201c<\/span>Maybe it was me,\u201d she says over the phone, as the narrative takes a\u00a0turn for the formally experimental around its halfway mark. \u200b\u201c<\/span>Maybe, with someone else, he would be a\u00a0superstar.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The film then dips into a\u00a0timeline involving an older version of Sasha (Amy Zimmer), who also narrates the first scene\u2009\u2014\u2009a\u00a0<\/span>Virgin Suicides<\/i>-esque introduction that also uses an omniscient narrator and overlays a\u00a0series of white sketches, in this case several maps that were hand-drawn by Romvari\u2019s own brother.\u00a0<\/span>Blue Heron<\/i> is rich in these kinds of nostalgic flourishes, almost avant garde in its meticulous attention to sensory detail. Despite feeling like a\u00a0fairly typical genre exercise in some ways, it\u2019s a\u00a0film that resists easy answers and categorisation. Contemporary cinematic works like this are only made possible when the stars align in terms of funding, talent, a\u00a0degree of luck, and a\u00a0singular vision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The proposition behind\u00a0<\/span>Blue Heron<\/i> is a\u00a0deceptively simple one \u2013 that childhood memories have a\u00a0texture, that your personal history is really a\u00a0series of incomplete dreams. So, would you like to sit with some of them here and now, in the\u00a0dark?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n