BLUE HERON

Home, they say, is found in the summers of our childhood. But there are summers that demolish any sense of belonging and drain every last reserve of carefreeness and innocence, even from the deepest, most concealed wells. In her subdued, yet deafening debut, filmmaker Sophy Romvari continues the autobiographical attempts of her award-winning short films, and returns to a liminal era, weaving together both luminous and shrouded memory fragments. Eight-year-old Sasha, the only girl in a family of seven who, in the late 90s, relocates from Hungary to Vancouver Island, tries to adapt to the new environment while simultaneously observing, though without truly comprehending, her beloved older brother slow descent further into the grip of a disorder, while the “adults” are paralyzed with fear and discomfiture. Twenty years later, her more mature self emerges from a bold cut, gathering scattered whispers, zooming in on unassuming objects, consulting expert opinion so as to encounter a beneficial analytical interpretation, while distancing herself from the trauma without forgetting its root cause – all these, with the tools only cinema can bestow, and featuring raw imagery of low fidelity but profound faith. Picking up the thread from films such as Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun and Courtney Stevens’s Invention, though unfolding the unique voice of a talent that came here to stay, Blue Heron reminds us that healing is a journey; one that begins with the admission that full recovery is unattainable.