Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Keith Wilhelm Kopp
Starring: Alan Emrys, Rob Peacock, Cameron Okai, Kate Morgan-Jones, Cari
Barley
Remember lockdown? Queuing for the supermarkets, pub quizzes over zoom,
and, for those of us who live alone, the relentlessly crushing and
seemingly eternal desolation of being completely alone day in and day out?
Under normal circumstances, living on one's own is a rare privilege. Had
enough of the absolute effort of being with around people? Slope on back
home. You can read all night, not fret over making the same tired small
talk and basically stretch the fuck out. Mmmm bliss. Not so utopian when
you don't have the choice, though. The urgent joy of spending the night
with someone, the cosy pleasure of experiencing the next morning together,
the opportunity to cook for, spoil, luxuriate in the company of someone
special? It felt like starvation without it. And then the insult to
insularity of not being able to go anywhere, either, not even the library
(unlike the *checks notes* actual Prime Minster of the country, most of us
abided by the rules...). Brings you right down.
It's a familiar situation which is further intensified for the lead
character of Translations, director Keith Wilhelm Kopp and writer Laurence Guy's
impressive indie. Following the untimely death of her brother, Stef (Kate Morgan-Jones) suffers from depression, is acutely agoraphobic, and hasn't left her
apartment for years. The thing about depression, see, is that after a
while people tend to leave you to it. Like most illnesses, it is an
embarrassing reminder to others of human frailty, of a potential weakness
they'd rather not confront. And so, they just let you get on with it.
Except, one day, there is a knock on the door and Stef's solitude is
broken by Evan (Alan Emrys), a friend of her brother's who has just
come back from travelling the world. The blunt irony of Evan's wanderlust
contradicting Stef's seclusion demarcates how each's life experiences
differ, but the two are yet united in a shared and delayed grief. Seeing
him as a link to her lost kinsman, Stef allows Evan to stay.
Now, that's a commitment! Of course, romance isn't initially on the cards,
but it is certainly in the air and Translations charts the
blossoming of this nascent connection. What is impressive about Kopp and
Guy's chamber piece is how gentle it feels, how subtle and convincingly
the unfolding of the relationship is presented. The push/pull dance of
attraction is exciting and relatable, and you will feel for Stef, for whom
this contact means so much more than just a hook up or a fling or even a
healthy ongoing union... And perhaps, for Stef here but also IRL, that's
the problem: the way we hope against hope that someone will rescue us from
ourselves, and hold on to this idea that being with someone will make
everything else bearable, even ourselves. Within the tight intimacy of the
milieu, both performances are dexterously calibrated, with Morgan-Jones'
lurching from gentle resignation to explosive torment an especially
affective invocation of mental anguish.
Will Stef find her own self resolve? In the elegant monochrome
mise-en-scene, she discovers individual purpose in translating Welsh to
English, and also in her own writing of introspective poetry, which soars
above the restrictions of her condition. Just as in Stef's poetry and her
elucidation of language, meaning and the communication of profound feeling
is likewise created by Translations, a deeply human experience.
Translations is touring cinemas now and heading for
streaming soon. Details are
here.
