The Passing ***
Dir: Gareth Bryn.
With: Mark Lewis Jones, Annes Elwy, Dyfan Dwyfor. 89 mins. Cert: 15
A rare Welsh-language
release, this handsome S4C-produced chiller actually sustains itself for a
while on the wordless rhythms and textures of woodsman Mark Lewis Jones’ life:
long, lonely rounds of digging and praying that promise, as elsewhere, that
there will eventually be blood. His routine is disrupted when young lovers Annes
Elwy and Dyfan Dwyfor plunge their car into a nearby stream, cueing a period of
increasingly tense cohabitation as repressed memories and emotions are hauled
to the surface like water from the local well. This slowburn process may
disappoint the crash-bang-wallop crowd, who possibly demand more bang for their
bucks nowadays than spectral presences at windows. Yet it’s assuredly played,
and its melancholy look and feel – handing everyone fading photographs of
brighter, better days – ensures it lingers longer than most homegrown genre
fare: writer Ed Talfan and director Gareth Bryn find in their characters’
apparent isolation something simultaneously beautiful, terrifying and sad.
The Passing is now playing in selected cinemas.
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