Archipelago - The Middle Class activity of watching paint dry...sort of....

Archipelago (2011)

Director: Joanna Hogg

Stars: Tom Hiddlestone, Kate Fay, Amy Lloyd

I’m going to come out and say it right now, I don’t know who out there would enjoy Archipelago. I don’t know anyone close who I could recommend it too and when people at work have asked me about it, I put on a brave smile and say it’s “interesting.”

Only during two scenes does Archipelago becomes “interesting” but when the majority of the film you’re put as a standing observer to the breakdown of this middle class family and their issues, you don’t really feel engaged in the film.

And I’m not trying to say that Archipelago is bollocks because it isn’t and I know that people out there have had different reactions to it. A friend of mine is quite to say that film is subjective and everyone’s viewing experience is different.

We differ here already. Byron Pitt can’t stop thinking about it. I’m trying to recall what actually happened.

This is a very very very slow film and is designed for viewers who have patience with their cinematic screenings. I am perfectly fine with slow burning films providing that there is something to be engaged with. 

For me, I just don’t get it with Archipelago.  There are interesting themes of class between the social interactions of Tom Hiddlestone’s Edward character with the hired chef Rose (played by Amy Lloyd ) and Edward’s family turning their nose up at the simple request of asking a hired hand to eat with them. There’s also difficult family dynamics of broken communication and the eventual realization that the words unsaid and actions unseen speak more than the simple conversation over dinner.

Now if this is your thing, Archipelago is something to reap in. Byron Pitt has found elements to draw out and think about. My trouble is that the slow pace, the unlikeability of nearly every character and the fact that not much seems to go on is the nail in the coffin to me. I would have been open to the film more if I felt more connected to the characters and the scenario. 

But however simplistic and beautifully minimalistic Joanna Hogg has presented this film, I simply cannot connect. only during two heated conversations during a family trip to a deserted restaurant and at their holiday home debating the future of one of the members of the family does Archipelago become interesting. Perhaps if it was staged for the theatre it might have been a more rewarding viewing and its themes more accessible to take in and evaluate.

However, when it’s nearly two hours long and very isolated to its own devices, I rather be somewhere else than dealing with this troubled and miscommunicated family.