The Levelling

Levelling means working away the unevenness of the ground. But I had a feeling that there was another meaning in psychology. I found this, " Leveling is when people keep out parts of stories and try to tone those stories down so that some parts are excluded." (Wiki) I think this is the key to understanding film. Our protagonist returns home for his brother's funeral and has to decipher what has happened over the past few months. It's a fascinating investigation. And through the grieving process and the rather complex parent-child relationship, we get a multi-layered story.

The protagonist (and it doesn't matter her gender; in the story it doesn't matter that she is the girl of the two children) is thrown back into her past. I really liked the way the behaviour of the educated and self-conscious woman who is about to become a vet is replaced, even in a single scene, by that of a vulnerable but strong little girl.