Latest news with #WentUptheHill
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
The solace of strangers
Relationships and healing were central for the director and star of a new film, they tell Weekend Mix film reviewer Amasio Jutel. New Zealand-Australian director Samuel Van Grinsven transforms the familiar nursery rhyme Jack and Jill into a haunting ghost story in his New Zealand International Film Festival entry Went Up the Hill . Starring Stranger Things ' Dacre Montgomery and Phantom Thread 's Vicky Krieps in the Australian heartthrob's most personal role to date, this slow-burning, genre-bending tale explores the aftermath of loss and the eerie ways grief can possess us. Set against the glowing winter scenery of Canterbury, Van Grinsven's Gothic quasi-adaptation unfolds as a tonally sombre, narratively fantastical chamber piece between two strangers who share a ghost. Jack (Montgomery), an estranged son, and Jill (Krieps), a grieving widow, meet for the first time at the funeral of Elizabeth, the woman they both thought they knew. But as they inhabit the cold, creaky house Elizabeth left behind, secrets unravel and something else begins to inhabit them both. The two powerhouse performances at the film's centre compellingly anchor Van Grinsven's vision. Compositionally, he has a masterful grasp of tone, powerfully announcing his entry into the canon of New Zealand's cinema of unease. This dream-turned-nightmare supernatural tale is more Bergman than Blumhouse - less a conventional horror and more a psychological supernatural drama infused with the gothic sensibilities of nursery rhymes. For Van Grinsven, there is something haunting about nursery rhymes. "There's something about nursery rhymes that are both caring and cautionary. They're connected to the maternal, passed down from generation to generation and reinterpreted. That felt very connected to the idea of generational trauma, and how that is passed down, willingly or not, from parent to child. That, in itself, felt haunting," he says. If Jack broke his crown, perhaps it wasn't a fall that did it. Maybe Jill did come tumbling down, just not in the way we were taught. The film was shot on location at Canterbury's Flock Hill estate, nestled beside Lake Pearson; there couldn't be a more fitting environment in which to set this ethereal tale. The snow-blanketed Southern Alps loom over the estranged pair, isolated by their grief. Stretching into silence, the wintered highlands dampen any connection to the outside world - a cold and indifferent land, up the hill. Van Grinsven shoots the mountains, the snow and the shadows with precision, capturing the eerie locale as it lives in his mind. "I wanted to capture New Zealand as I remembered it," Van Grinsven says, "as a child driving up and down with a sense of wide-eyed wonderment and being dwarfed by the landscape." The painterly, desaturated aesthetic - whites, greys, browns, and blacks - pushes the visual language towards the Gothic. Van Grinsven and director of photography Tyson Perkins use light, shadow, reflection, and bisecting lines to mirror the characters' fractured identities and emotional states. Claustrophobic framing ensnares the viewer in Van Grinsven's trap, a compositional control he holds with a firm grip. "The antagonist of the film is not on screen in a way that audiences are used to," Van Grinsven explains. "I had to bring her to life with every other tool in my toolkit, whether that's the control of the camera or an extremely severe control over colour palette." Composer Hanan Townshend wrote the score before filming even began, helping shape the film's emotional tone. Lullaby-like, wordless vocalisations amplify the childlike longing Van Grinsven saw in the nursery rhyme. "That lulling effect that a nursery rhyme has on you in real life is what I wanted to capture," he explains. "That you almost feel hypnotised by it." The resulting tone is sombre and dreamlike, finely tuned, precise, and eerie. The tonal unease - somewhere between horror, fantasy, and drama - was achieved by layering genres. Van Grinsven drew inspiration from Persona -era Ingmar Bergman. He describes it as "the strange tension point when you put two genres together that aren't meant to go together, or don't conventionally go together". The cold and creaky house at the centre of his film, perched like a secret among the hills, was in the world of the film designed by the recently deceased Elizabeth. Young star Montgomery calls it "the third character". "Every single element and layer of the onion that is this beautiful film is influenced by Flock Hill estate. We were living on one side of the house and performing on the other side. It was intrinsically in our bones and our DNA by the end of the film. You couldn't escape it. It's everything," Montgomery says. "It's the archetype of the haunted house, but in a purely naturalistic way, connected to the landscape in New Zealand. She built in this location for a reason," Van Grinsven adds. It shapes the film's oppressive mood and echoes the characters' emotional imprisonment, eloquently portrayed by Montgomery and Krieps. "We were all Shelly Duvall in The Shining at one point," Montgomery jokes. Jack is fragile, consumed by a longing for maternal connection; Jill's identity, like Jack's, is deeply entangled with Elizabeth. He is searching for a mother he never had; she is mourning a partner she never truly knew. Together, they engage in this poetic "psychic ballet" - to coin Van Grinsven - creating Elizabeth in each other's bodies: Jack as Jill's wife, Jill as Jack's mother. In doing so, they search for what they believe is closure, but it's what ultimately keeps them trapped in grief. "There's always this unearned intimacy between the two of them; this unease where they are for a portion of the film, using each other as a means to an end, but gradually grow to care about each other," Van Grinsven says. "There was something quite beautiful about the way Vicky and Dacre kept up the energy - that palpable kind of tension that only comes from two strangers." Taking a leaf out of Phantom Thread co-star Daniel Day-Lewis' book, Krieps never socialised with Montgomery off-set. "We have the most intense chemistry of anyone I've ever worked with, but we never spoke to each other," Montgomery says. "I feel like I had this weird old soul bond with Vicky that we didn't need to get into." As much as this ghost story wasn't a horror film, it was certainly an exorcism for Montgomery, who describes his time on the film as a deeply personal journey of self-reckoning. "From the year of rehearsal we did and the further year and a-half it took me to let go of the character before we premiered at Toronto, I didn't do anything except live Went Up the Hill for two and a-half years of my life." The role demanded more than just performance. Montgomery stripped away his own defences to inhabit not just Jack's grief, but his own. "Using art to try to heal oneself is incredibly revealing. You become very self-conscious of your performance, your being, how your body looks, and how you feel. That was a challenge I overcame in this film: letting go of that and allowing myself to be a child and to be vulnerable as Dacre. I felt I was able to overcome that in some parts, and in others, it was truly a wall I couldn't break through. "Jack may be the only character I ever play that is truly almost, in so many ways, me." Went Up the Hill casts complex queer characters in a story archetype that traditionally invites conventional narrative expectations, a fact that informs the subtle power dynamics and emotional distance between its leads. "I was excited by the core relationship in the film being a queer woman and a queer man," Van Grinsven says. "If they were both to be heterosexual, the baggage that an audience brings to a film about possession and ghostliness would be that they're going to form a romantic connection. By queering that expectation, it opens audiences up to a more honest and raw exploration of what the film's dealing with." The film also continues themes Van Grinsven explored in his debut, Sequin in a Blue Room . "It was exciting for me, being able to grapple with things that I see in real relationships around me, real queer relationships around me, and bring that to the screen in a way they're not often represented. "I think queer cinema is changing so much. I think for the first time, we're seeing queer cinema being approached as commercially viable. There's a real appetite coming from audiences, which is fantastic." • Went Up the Hill screens as part of Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival at Rialto, Thursday, August 21, 6pm.
New York Post
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘Stranger Things' star Dacre Montgomery shares why he left Hollywood just as his stardom began
Stranger things have happened. Horror hunk Dacre Montgomery has shared why he stepped back from the limelight after finding stardom in Netflix's mega-hit show 'Stranger Things.' 'I think things have changed,' Montgomery said in an interview with The Australian. 'Traditional Hollywood stars existed because there was mystery… Social media has done away with that. That's a large part of why I dropped off the map for the last five years.' 4 Dacre Montgomery stepped back from Hollywood after acting in 'Stranger Things.' Courtesy Netflix The Australian-born actor, who rose to fame playing Billy Hargrove on the 12-time Emmy Award-winning series, wanted to navigate Tinseltown on his terms. 'I'm not trying to compete with anyone else, I'm living my truth — and hopefully being able to pay the rent while I'm doing it,' Montgomery said. Montgomery joined 'Stranger Things' during the show's second season and his character was killed off at the end of the third season, which aired in July 2019. 'I've given a piece of myself to every role I've played and that's largely why I've taken time off,' Dacre added. Montgomery has acted in nearly a dozen projects over the past decade. 4 Montgomery appeared in season 2 and 3 of Netflix's hit horror show. Courtesy Netflix 4 Montgomery attended the 'Went Up the Hill' premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Getty Images His most notable roles include playing Steve Binder in the 2022's 'Elvis' starring Austin Butler and the Red Ranger in the 2017 'Power Rangers' film. 'Lately, there's been a lot of personal reflection about what I want in my career,' Montgomery added to the Australian. 'I'm trying to gain a bit more control over where and what I'm working on.' The 30-year-old is focused on picking projects that could leave a lasting 'impact' with viewers, according to his recent interview with People Magazine. 4 Montgomery is planning to make his directorial debut with the film 'The Engagement Party.' Penske Media via Getty Images He hoped his new indie thriller, 'Went Up the Hill,' might accomplish his vision of creating work with a long-term presence with some audiences. 'The connective tissue between all the films I'm trying to do at the moment is films that have something really important to say, and 'Went Up the Hill' is divisive,' Montgomery told People. 'It's not a movie that everyone will connect to, but the people that do connect to it, I hope, will find catharsis.' Montgomery added, 'And that's why you make these movies, right? Because it only has to impact one person in the right way to work. And that's really what I'm really trying to mine in my career, is being a part of projects like that.' Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Montgomery is also in the process of trying his hand behind the camera. 'The Broken Hearts Gallery' actor will make his directorial debut with the film 'The Engagement Party,' according to Deadline. Montgomery is also expected to star in the film
