The Eternal Daughter (2022)

"A24 Art House Gothic - And Very Good, Too"

After premiering at the LFF in 2022 and its subsequent run in cinemas last year, Joanna Hogg's atmospheric mood piece gets a Blu-ray release from the BFI.

Julie Hart (Tilda Swinton) arrives at a remote Welsh country hotel with her mother Rosalind (Swinton again) for them to spend a few days together. Julie is a film-maker and plans to spend the daytime working on a new writing project. 

As time goes on it becomes apparent that there is nobody else staying at the hotel. It also seems that Julie's mother used to live there and she tells Julie how the rooms have changed since she was a resident. Things get stranger, culminating in Rosalind's birthday when the bringing in of a cake leads to revelations.

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER has a very slight plot but makes up for it with a lot of very well done gothic atmosphere. Hogg films both interiors and exteriors from just the right angle and with just the right amount of lighting (or lack of it) to suggest extreme creepiness. In fact if Mike Flanagan hadn't already recently remade THE HAUNTING for Netflix the thought of Joanna Hogg making it would have been most welcome. 

Swinton is excellent in both roles (no surprises there) and the film gets bonus points for having her character reading the original Robert Aickman-edited Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories at breakfast. Like Aickman's own stories, THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER is more about gradually building a sense of unease than delivering shocks, so you'll be best rewarded if you go in not expecting the kind of blood and thunder one might associate with the term 'Gothic', but rather something that's going to get under your skin and keep you thinking about it for days afterwards.

Extras on the BFI's Blu-ray include an excellent commentary track with Hogg and production designer Stéphane Collonge which discusses some of the inspiration for the film (NIGHT OF THE DEMON, THE INNOCENTS) as well as many of the details about how it was made. Another audio track provides audio description which more discs should have. There's a 35 minute Q&A with Hogg and Swinton and a separate, 76 minute conversation with Hogg which covers her entire career. You also get PRESAGES, an 11 minute short film with Hogg narration. Finally the disc comes with an informative booklet featuring essays by Catherine Bray and Hannah Strong, and an interview with Hogg by Roger Luckhurst.

Joanna Hogg's THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER is out now from the BFI on Blu-ray and Digital