MQFF NOTES: He Hated Pigeons (2015, Dir. Ingrid Veninger)

Realistically representing grief onscreen is a difficult ask. There's only so many ugly-cries an audience will indulge. And if we are really breaking it down, as heartbroken or emotionally devastated as we may be, we don't always put that out there for everyone to see.

I'm reminded of a scene from Don Roos' The Opposite of Sex, where Christina Ricci's character narrates Martin Donovan's emotional collapse after his lover leaves him. She curates a montage of scenes of him choking up, looking mournfully, bawling uncontrollably, but then she cuts through all that and says CTFD, he also payed his bills, ate his dinner, etc. These are the grief scenes we elide from cinema. They aren't performative enough.

With this front of mind, it is clear just how immense a task film maker Ingrid Veninger set herself when she embarked on a journey through Chile, from the Atacama Desert to glacial Patagonia, with actor Pedro Fontaine to film the story of Elias, a man dealing with the loss of his boyfriend, Sebastien.

One man, one pickup truck, a dead lover's diary and some scattered flashbacks - Veninger doesn't give herself much to work with. Even music, one of cinema's most powerful tools, she has let go of, an act she hopes will reflect the impermanence of love and life. Each screening, He Hated Pigeons is accompanied by a new live score, one that she has no creative control over. With Veninger's film near wordless, the music is key to the success of the experience. Melbourne's screening was accompanied by Frankie Topaz from Total Giovanni, whose stripped back electronic soundscapes resembled (perhaps too closely) the bare bones of a traditional indie film score.

Without anyone to bounce off, and without a score that draws emotion itself, Elias' grief dissipates in the Chilean expanse. That's a realistic expression of the experience, and one that forces focus to Veninger's impressive visuals, but not something that provided the sort of catharsis that I was craving.

A worthy experience that left me hanging.

★★★

Trailer:

He Hated Pigeons screened as part of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.