Hide and Seek

With little preamble, four young adults go to live in an isolated country cottage and unleash their imaginations and libidos. I am not sure what this film is trying to say, but I understand how it is being said.

This is a stylish film, filled with pastoral scenes of solitude and contemplation. The four are initially guarded and awkward, but as time passes, they organically grow as a foursome, granting each other permission to experiment and unleash they childish impulses for fun. As the days and nights unfold, the lines between reality and fantasy/pretend become blurred. Ultimately, they must learn to trust each other if their experiment is to continue.

This film might have been titled "polyamorous", given the nature of their relationship after weeks of intimate seclusion. It is primarily a series of vignettes, providing glimpses into their evolving four-person relationship. They achieve some measure of freedom from social conventions, but the experiment is open-ended.

I saw this film at the Film Fest Ghent 2014, where it was part of the section Global Cinema. To state my lack of appreciation upfront: I cannot find anything positive in this movie. The outset is not clear, and does not become clearer later on. Only those who have read the synopsis before, have a bit of a clue what it is all about. The evening games and their underlying rules remain unclear as well. Even more unclear is the purpose of the (home made) coffin that is set alight, a ritual that we see in the beginning with a repeat later on. Only one scene was interesting, viz. when a 5th person arrived (an ex-boyfriend). Much to his regret his ex-partner announced that she was much happier than ever before. Alas, the potential drama faltered and he left shortly after.

I only understand half of the title. The word Hide seems a reference to being away from "normal" civilization. Nevertheless, I'm surprised about the amount of "bourgeois" stuff they obviously had available in that remote cottage, for example given the Christmas related attributes which they showed in much more variety than I ever had. Further, the word Seek is completely lost on me, be it that it may refer to finding a new future in living your life. This second part of the title promises that there is a message, a conclusion or even a morale, but I found neither.

The 4 actors (plus 1 for a short time) did their best, and worked believable through their respective roles. Neither got the opportunity to reveal much of their background and expectations. And neither is there any drama on the table, except (see above) in one isolated case (which failed). They cannot show their strengths on those fields, but I don't think that is their fault altogether. In the final Q&A the question was raised how much of the action was improvised and what was rehearsed. Apart from that it was a bit of both, I did not hear a clear answer. So what is left to admire?? I observe only pretenses that this film will provoke thoughts about your own life as it is (but it failed miserably for me). Possibly I'm not the appropriate target group??

Seen at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2014. 'Hide and Seek' has a simple story: Leah, a young woman unsure of what she wants from life, inherits an isolated cottage in the country. She invites three other youngsters - a woman and two men - to move in with her on the understanding a different combination - female/male, female/female and male/male - will share what they call the 'marital bed' each night. In between bouts in the bed they while away the hours lazing in the garden or staging evening 'entertainments' (art class, a pretend camping trip, mock funeral etc).

And that's it, really; there's not much sign of a conventional storyline here, although the film does have a beginning, middle and end. Director Joanna Coates keeps the pace constant, if slow; and pulls off the difficult trick of making the sex scenes reasonably explicit but also rather discrete (a vigorous five-finger shuffle aside). (Incidentally, don't get the wrong idea - there aren't so many sex scenes, and they're all pretty brief - this isn't soft porn.) The four young leads - none of whom are drop-dead gorgeous, which adds to the realism of the piece, although none of them looks bad naked - cope well enough with their roles, although for me acting honours go to Hannah Arterton as the girl who breaks a romance of five years to join the group; she utilises a range of facial ticks which on another actor might have seemed too much like Acting - Arterton, however, makes them quite natural.

Let's take a look at the positive. This is or could be perceived as a master class in acting. The movie itself seems to be free of restrictions (and clothes for that matter) and you should be aware of the nudity. There is no visible penetration by the way, but you do have male self pleasuring (explicit and vivid).

Having stated that (in Germany the movie still got the 16+ rating), that should not play a role for or against the movie. The characters have issues which become even more apparent during a visit from the "outside". Their circle is clear and somewhat stagnant, this outside influence kind of gives the movie a bit of a new edge, but nothing that is sustained. We get back to the old "craziness". Which may be the point of the movie, but does not make it more attractive or viewers more excited to watch it (if you'll excuse the pun)

Oh dear! What a mess!

There's little storyline to the whole thing. Four twenty somethings drop out and do the fourth way kind of gig on a country farm. Think, let's make a little free love commune, without all the hippy paraphernalia. There's little back story to anyone and not much exposition in general. Quite honestly director and co-writer Joanna Coates doesn't appear to have done the hard yards on this project at all.

Lots of repetition of scenes; lying around the farm yard, pretentious little group concerts and plays (burning cardboard coffins?) and nightly musical beds. Some ex-boyfriend drops in for a bit and then leaves in a huff and it all ends up with an orgy, that drags on for a few minutes, where we don't see much, because it's filmed in such extreme close-up.

Way back in 1969 Paul Mazursky directed a (kind of) similar-themed movie called Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. I never thought it was a particularly good film, though it was a resounding critical and commercial success. It had two big things going for it that Joanna Coates has completely ignored in her making of Hide & Seek. First it had some sort of story happening with its four main characters and second it had a sense of humour and didn't take itself too seriously.

The most interesting thing I can say about Hide and Seek is that Gemma Arterton's (one of my favourites) little sister Hannah, is one of the four "stars", all of whom had very little with which to work. One of them, Daniel Metz can take a certain portion of the blame for that too, as he co-wrote the very thin script with Coates.