Do you remember your childhood? I mean really remember it? Some people are able to recall every last detail of the past, but most of us merely retain memories of a few standout moments. They could be moments of joy, or of trauma, but often they're completely random. When I try to conjure memories of my childhood I tend not to think of specific incidents but rather senses: the smell of my dad's aftershave, my mother's perfume, or the sweaty socks I pulled off after a summer's day of play. I can't recall the faces of any of my childhood friends or my teachers, but I could probably tell you what my favourite song was in any given month of the '80s. My childhood exists now as an aural and sensual collage rather than a reliable recollection of key events.
Based on her feature debut, Blue Heron, that is likely how writer/director Sophy Romvari relates to her childhood, though she has the added advantage of having come of age in the era of camcorder footage. As with her acclaimed short Still Processing, Blue Heron sees Romvari employ the medium of film in an attempt to make sense of a childhood she couldn't fully process at the time. This is cinema as excavation.
Semi-autobiographical, Blue Heron follows a Hungarian immigrant family in late '90s Canada. The oldest son, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), is a teenager suffering from an as yet fully diagnosed mental disorder that causes him to strike out in anti-social ways. This has resulted in his family having to relocate several times. We catch up with them as they move into a new home on Vancouver island, hoping for a fresh start. But almost as soon as they arrive it becomes clear that they aren't like one of those families in horror movies that can simply move out of their haunted house. Jeremy begins acting out immediately, forcing his parents (Ádám Tompa and Iringó Réti, credited only as Father and Mother) to confront the troubling idea that they may not be suitably equipped to raise him.
The story is told largely through the inquisitive but confused eyes of eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven). Like Spielberg's E.T. (come to think of it, Beddoes bears a remarkable resemblance to a young Spielberg), many scenes see Romvari ape the technique of Tom & Jerry cartoons, with the faces of adults out of shot. This reinforces the idea that we are watching someone's fractured memories.
Along with her two other brothers (Liam Serg, Preston Drabble), Sasha's childhood is often interrupted by her parents' need to drop everything and rush to the scene of Jeremy's latest misdemeanour. In one scene, as Jeremy is returned home by security guards after being accosted for shoplifting, we realise the camcorder footage of the incident is shot by Sasha, having picked up the camera when her father dropped it. In this moment we are explicitly reminded that Sasha is a surrogate for the filmmaker, and that even at that young age she sought to make sense of chaos by viewing the world through a viewfinder.
We grow to love this troubled family, thanks to the sympathetic work of the young Guven and Tompa and Réti as her worn down parents. Perhaps the most remarkable performance is that of Beddoes. Despite an almost complete lack of dialogue and his character being largely defined by what we hear about him from others, the young actor imbues Jeremy with a humanity. Through his thick glasses we see into his tortured soul. His smile can sometimes be the sinister smirk of a sociopath, but in some moments it is an expression of genuine contentment. When he climbs onto the roof of his home, Jeremy's parents understandably fear the worst, but the relaxed expression on his face is that of someone who maybe has figured out a few things about life that the rest of us have yet to catch up with.
So invested are we in this family that when Romvari abruptly cuts to 20 years later around her film's halfway point, it feels like a cruel trick. At this point some viewers will likely feel Romvari has taken a misstep in turning her attention to the now adult Sasha (Amy Zimmer), a filmmaker in the process of making a documentary about Jeremy. It can feel as though we haven't spent enough time getting to know Sasha's family and their situation, but this is a feature, not a bug. The abruptness of the transition reminds us that we are watching Sasha's memories, and they have simply run out.
For the rest of the movie we follow Sasha as she consults with social workers and mental health experts (who appear to be played by their real life counterparts) to learn if Jeremy's case might have been handled more efficiently. The film takes a magic realist turn when Sasha time travels back to a pivotal day in her childhood and assumes the role of a visiting social worker.
Blue Heron's focus on the effects of living with a mentally troubled person rather than on the victim himself might leave a bad taste in some viewers' mouths. Romvari could have fleshed out Jeremy more and made him more central, give him more agency. But to do so would be dishonest to her memories. For the young Sasha, Jeremy was a stranger who lived in her house, and it is only now as an adult that she yearns to know and understand him. The ultimate sadness of Blue Heron is that nobody seems to have really understood Jeremy, but if there is truth to the words sung by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, perhaps to know him is to love him.
Directed by: Sophy Romvari
Starring: Eylul Guven, Amy Zimmer, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Edik Beddoes, Liam Serg, Preston Drabble
