‘Blue Heron’ review: Contemplative Canadian debut sees a filmmaker confront her difficult past

Dir/scr: Sophy Romvari. Canada/Hungary. 2025. 90mins

A lyrical research of the twisting nature of reminiscence and the lasting influence of childhood trauma, Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s debut Blue Heron has an authenticity and sensitivity that steers it by means of occasional moments of narrative affectation. The story of a Hungarian immigrant household of six settling into a brand new house on Vancouver Island within the late Nineties, as informed by means of the eyes of the youngest youngster, the movie’s gradual tempo and contemplative tenor rewards a affected person viewer.

Blurs the road between reality and fiction in a woozy, laconic manner

Romvari’s well-received brief movies embrace Nonetheless Processing (2020) – with which this movie shares key themes – Tiger Eats A Child (2020) and It’s What Every Particular person Wants (2022), and Blue Heron represents a assured, creatively daring transfer to options. The movie performs Toronto after premiering at Locarno, the place it received the perfect first characteristic award, and subsequent strikes on to berths together with San Sebastian and London. It ought to proceed to impress on the pageant circuit, and will effectively entice a distributor on the lookout for distinctive new voices.

Based mostly on author/director Romvari’s personal experiences, Blue Heron blurs the road between reality and fiction in a woozy, laconic manner; this can be a drama by which views shift, timelines merge and soft-focus sequences are layered with a documentary-style aesthetic. It’s all a part of the journey of recollection and discovery for protagonist Sasha – who we see as each a younger woman and an grownup – and for Romvari, who’s utilizing the narrative to unpick her personal reminiscences, to get to raised grips along with her personal formative experiences.

Sasha (Eylul Guven) is eight years previous when she arrives along with her household to Vancouver Island, a good looking setting which guarantees clear skies and the liberty of the nice open air. And there may be loads of that; Sasha performs along with her siblings, goes to the seaside, makes tentative mates with native women. However a darkish cloud has adopted them, and appears to hover over her older stepbrother Jeremy (a superb Eddik Bedoes). His more and more erratic behaviour and the devastating impact it’s having on his mom (Iringo Reti) and step-father (Adam Tompa) suggests critical psychological well being points. Whereas Sasha struggles to know Jeremy’s ache she nonetheless seeks a closeness with him – the movie is known as after a stolen trinket he presents her in a uncommon second of connection.

There’s a nice deal taking place underneath the floor right here – Jeremy’s demons, eternally threatening to spill over; his mom’s anxiousness; Sasha’s confusion. Delicate craft selections be part of with restrained, trustworthy performances to offer a window into these tumultuous interior worlds. Victoria Furuya’s manufacturing design is restrained and meticulous, firmly setting the movie within the late Nineties however with an genuine, lived-in high quality befitting this impecunious household. Sound design, from Peter Benjamin Lukacs, can also be fastidiously calibrated, foregrounding on a regular basis noises (a lawnmower, trampoline strings, the clicking of a digicam) in order that they intrude on this deceptively quiet world. Cinematographer Maya Bancovic shoots with an extended lens that emphasises the space between Jeremy and his household, and the self-imposed isolation between the household and their new group.

The second half of the movie jumps forwards 20 years, with Sasha now a filmmaker performed by Amy Zimmer. She has launched into a mission about her brother, now lifeless, to attempt to perceive him – and what occurred to him. An excessive amount of this part is shot verité-style, together with an extended dialog with social care employees (performed by actual life professionals) who talk about the difficulties of Jeremy’s case, the bounds of the assistance he was in a position to obtain.

There are additionally sequences by which Sasha imagines herself returning to her childhood house within the guise of a social employee, having a frank dialog along with her mother and father about her brother. (This dialog occurred earlier within the movie, with a distinct actress enjoying the social employee; the then eight-year-old Sasha heard solely snippets.) Romvari and editor Kurt Walker hold a good hand on proceedings however this overt manipulation and bending of chronology does act as one thing of a spoke within the wheel of an in any other case fluid narrative.

It’s actually not sufficient to derail Blue Heron, nonetheless, and Romvary’s level stays clear, and poignant: that childhood can forged an extended shadow, and that it could possibly solely tackle a definitive form when considered from a distance.