The Films of Joanna Hogg: Exhbition (2013)

Exhibition (2013) 

Directed by: Joanna Hogg.

Written by: Joanna Hogg.

Starring: Viv Albertine (D), Liam Gillick (H), Tom Hiddleston (Estate Agent), Harry Kershaw (Estate Agent), Mary Roscoe (Neighbour Guest), Carol McFadden (Dina Breeze), Chris Wilson (Ambulance Paramedic). 

 

After two strong features – Unrelated and Archipelago – which featured many similarities in terms of story and style – Joanna Hogg made Exhibition as her third film in 2013. It is undeniably a more ambitious film than her first two – and a more ambiguous one. Instead of a family on holiday – which defined the first two films – Exhibition is about a pair of artists, who have decided to sell their modernist London home that they have lived happily in for nearly 20 years. He, only known as H (Liam Gillick) is more optimistic about the move than she, D (Viv Albertine) is, and there is a quiet tension between the two of them, who are disconnected with each other. Throughout the course of the movie, we will spend more time with her – she is a performance artist, and in a way she is always working. The house has massive windows, and people can always see in. The title then takes on a few connotations – as in an art exhibition, or when you exhibit your house to buyers, or in how their marriage is on display. The house becomes an extension of D and her artistry.

 

In Exhibition, I think Hogg is trying to push herself farther than she had done previously. The film is meticulously crafted. She often shoots empty hallways in the house, listening in on the couple in other rooms. There is a coldness – a sterility really – to the movie that will remind some of Michael Haneke. This extends to everything the couple does. There is a lot of sex in the film (nothing overly graphic) but it as well seems mechanical and passionless. They are going through the motions here. The attention to detail extends to the sound design of the film as well – which is more intricate than what Hogg had attempted up until this point.

 

And yet, as much as I admire a lot about the craft in which the film was made, I have to say that I found Exhibition to be a cold, dull, emotionless film. Perhaps it is the performances – neither of the leads are professional actors, and they are somewhat robotic. That may be part of Hogg’s point – I believe that it is – but it doesn’t help you to connect with them in any real way, or even find them that all that interesting to spend time with. The film repeats itself a lot – making the same points again and again.

 

There are moments that work – when the couple actually speak to each other and she tells him she doesn’t want his input on her work, and he complains that what is he supposed to do – just be there with her, and she says precisely – she wants a companion more than anything. Yet those scenes are far too few with too much of the same in between. Perhaps it’s because I’m not someone who is really into this kind of twee performance art – I run hot and cold on the films or Miranda July for instance, and find this sort of navel gazing to be off-putting at times. Perhaps it’s because Hogg has gone too far into the refuse to explain her character’s motivations – I think Unrelated didn’t need the main character to explain her thoughts which she did anyway in one scene, that Archipelago found the right balance between explaining and not, and think Exhibition goes too far into the other camp.

 

Still, the film shows what a fine filmmaker Hogg is. It’s just that this time there is so much craft on display, and so little purpose for any of it. I like Hogg as a filmmaker – but Exhibition left me cold.