Exhibition

A middle aged, middle class couple (artist and architect) are considering selling their modernist London home. Their relationship, values and lifestyle are critically investigated.

There is little meaningful communication between the couple with closeness replaced by endless analysis and polite observations. Meaning in their lives appears to come from intellectualizing the minutiae of everyday life as something profound. The obsession with their home could be a substitute for a relationship.

A potentially clever film with possibly valid insights into contemporary life, however, the film is perhaps too long for what is delivered and perhaps a dramatic, life changing event in the latter half would have justified the duration.

Reminiscent of an impressionist painting or a play by Harold Pinter, characters and plot are not spelt out and the viewer has to put in a little effort to understand. It's not mainstream and you won't enjoy it if that's what you're looking for. However it makes rewarding viewing if you don't mind giving serious thought into what you're seeing on the screen.

Joanna Hogg makes sparse, almost stilted films about uncommunicative, and to my mind, unappealing middle class people. 'Exhibition' is not quite as painful to watch as her earlier film 'Archipelago', but it does feel a little pointless: an architect loves his artistic wife, even though they don't really talk to each other. Her explicit refusal to discuss her work is made exasperating for the viewer because the film doesn't show us it either, at least not in any terms that one could imagine as saleable product: the vision of the artist here is of someone spending time alone, periodically donning weird outfits and standing or sitting in strange positions. Instead of the art-theme predominating, we're just left with the irritating ticks of the overly-fortunate. It feels like an improvisation that was never turned into a finished script.

I'm not sure why the first reviewer felt the need to attack Hogg personally and trash her aesthetic. Her removed, mesmeric method of filming people in relationships isn't for everyone, but she will appeal to viewers interested in unconventional approaches and who appreciate not having characters' emotions spelled out at every step.

As with her earlier film Archipelago, the characters reveal themselves solely through their actions and speech in a context of mundane everyday life, but Exhibition ventures into fantasy/dream-state in a way that helps expose the inner reality of D, the wife who seems almost trapped in a house that is as much a character as its human inhabitants.

Something happened at one point that we are not privy to, but it has deeply affected D. One could say that she and the house are haunted, and it acts as a defining structure for her relationship with her husband H. Its spaces are strictly defined as to who lives where, as both artists work next to, but separate from, each other.

We are given glimpses of each through short interactions, attempts at lovemaking, and H's sense of control contrasted with D's retreat. She seems passive and self-protective, and their decision about the house will change everything.

The movie may be considered "boring" by people addicted to action, or who can't stand having negative space where an explanation "should" be. The film isn't slowly paced, but as with her other films, the spaces between are as important as what the characters say. Get acquainted with Hogg's work and be surprised at how affecting it is.