Climate of the Hunter (Reece, 2019) and The Nest (Durkin, 2020)

More highlights from 2020. Mickey Reece’s Climate of the Hunter (named after the Scott Walker album?) is a moody, sometimes-campy, always-fascinating film. It’s got some echoes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (most notably in two asylum scenes)-

-and probably Nosferatu–

-of maybe just Murnau in general. It’s odd that I felt so many silent film influences here, as this is a rather talkie movie. Wesley (Ben Hall) does a lot of that speaking, often in the form of erudite monologues. He’s an enigmatic man who returns to an isolated cabin to see two childhood friends and possible loves, sisters Alma (Ginger Gilmartin) and Elizabeth (Mary Buss). Strange things occur, family bonds are strained, and some form of madness ensues.

There are several dinner table scenes and Reece and DoP Samuel Calvin vary them up in beautiful ways. An early one pans and zooms back and forth. A later scene, when Alma’s daughter Rose (Danielle Evon Ploeger) shows up, is shot in clean, wide-lensed singles, where the camera is personified as various characters:

Such great production design by Kaitlyn Shelby in there, too. Rose and Alma are isolated with their backgrounds, while Wesley and Elizabeth seem to be in the actual space. The horizontal or vertical line of the candles in the foreground guides as to who is where. And there are plenty of little rhymes in their wardrobe (by Jack Odell) – the circle of Elizabeth’s necklace to those on Alma’s blouse. Rose’s collar to Wesley’s.

Reece employs this odd, omniscient voiceover (whose voice is it?) to talk about the various foods they eat. I don’t have a reason for it, but it’s surprising and funny and after you hear it the first time you simultaneously ask if you heard what you thought you heard and then anticipate the next one. It’s like we’re being pulled away from the narrative and into a cooking show in those moments.

I loved these dark shot-reverses between Rose and Wesley:

And the extreme sparkles from Genevieve (Laurie Cummings):

Climate of the Hunter can get pretty metaphysical at times-

-and all of those stylistic elements add to it a sort of gothic flair, forming one singular experience.

The Nest

Sean Durkin must be one of the modern masters of the zoom. I loved his use of them in Martha Marcy May Marlene and also here, in his great sophomore film, The Nest.

Jude Law and Carrie Coon are great as Rory and Allison O’Hara, a married couple with a dense past whose relationship is tested when they abruptly move to the UK.

In many ways, The Nest is a take on the haunted house film. It’s got that old English manor filled with dark passages, doors that seemingly open on their own, creaking floors. There is a ghost in Durkin’s film, just not one that ever materializes. It’s of Rory’s past and his myopic, naive belief in a future that won’t exist.

Durkin and cinematographer Mátyás Erdély, whose work I recognize best in Son of Saul and Sunset, shoot on 35 and you can feel that texture in the frames. Characters are often a half or full stop darker than the backgrounds and that adds a claustrophobic air to the whole thing.

There’s an ending here that feels very much like that in A History of Violence, but still all its own. Those films aren’t too far apart many other ways, in fact.

Perhaps the best scene in The Nest is an awkward dinner with Rory, Allison, and some potential business partners. The dialogue is great, and it leads so well into a worthy crosscut that could go in so many wrong, overwrought directions, but stays its true course, branching softly into a quick nightmare, and then back to its uncertain, albeit slightly more aware reality.