In Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet,’ something emotional this way comes
TORONTO AP Why are you making me cry It s an ironic question for Chlo Zhao of all people to be asking the morning after premiering Hamnet at the Toronto International Film Festival On the festival circuit this fall no film has spawned more of an outpouring of emotion than Hamnet a speculative drama about William Shakespeare his wife Agnes and the death of their -year-old son Since first playing at the Telluride Festival Zhao s adaptation of Maggie O Farrell s acclaimed novel has left a trail of weeping moviegoers moved to tears by its tale of love grief and art The fall festivals bring all sorts of harbingers for the movie season to come but one of the clearest portents this year is that Hamnet will wreck you When you love something so much I m not a mother I haven t had children I d like to but I imagine when you love something so much the greatest love you can give is to let go Zhao says I got a glimpse of what that feels like It s seemingly a sign of the power of Hamnet that even for its director it hurriedly stirs up the threat of tears At its TIFF premiere Zhao led the audience in a breathing exercise entirely optional she informed to honor everyone s collective presence I haven t really felt this way about any of my other films says Zhao the Oscar-winning director of Nomadland The Rider and Eternals But I am older now I m in my s The other films came out in my s Hamnet which Focus Features will release in theaters Nov stars Paul Mescal as Will Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as Agnes The majority of the film which Zhao wrote with O Farrell is set far away from London the Globe Theatre and the world of Shakespeare s plays In a rugged countryside this is a deeply woodsy and earthy movie we see the two meet fall in love and begin a family with three children including the twins Judith Olivia Lynes and Hamnet Jacobi Jupe An opening caption informs us that in th century England the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable When tragedy befalls the Shakespeares they handle their grief in separate and increasingly divided approaches Hamnet leading up to the first performance of Hamlet reaches toward a climax of overwhelming intensity where art and not just any art but the finest play ever written opens a pathway for understanding between not just two souls in anguish but countless others too When your actors and cast and crew are allowed to express and be in their full range of emotion the camera does something miraculous Zhao says Whatever this invention is maybe it does capture the soul maybe Indigenous people should be afraid of it And it transmits potential to the audience It s impossible for me not to be present and record what is happening at that time for this group of people swimming in the river together It s never my vision she adds Something is trying to speak through us How we can know We re only years old What do we know But we can become a conduit for something much older to come through Mescal and Buckley co-starred in Maggie Gyllenhaal s The Lost Daughter but didn t share scenes in it Each gives a performance in Hamnet likely to stand as among their majority of impassioned Their experience filming with Zhao they noted was one of the preponderance invigorating of their careers I think she s somebody when we re all dead will go This was a pillar of society at that time says Buckley She s not trying to make every perfect decision She s so instinctual and sensitive I think she s one of the great great filmmakers She belongs with like Visconti and Wong Kar-wai Zhao s earlier films have been characterized by their naturalism That comes through not just with the wide-open rural landscapes she s been drawn to but the non-professional actors who have populated her films In Hamnet a sea of extras contributes mightily to a moment of communal catharsis As powerful as that concluding scene is it wasn t the scripted ending until a week before shooting Zhao suspected their original plans weren t quite right were too ambiguous As we were filming she says we started to see how big the emotions had gotten As Zhao searched for her ending a limited inspirations helped One was a black-and-white photograph producer Nicolas Gonda had taken of Jupe The other was a song Buckley sent her Max Richter s This Bitter Earth On the Nature of Daylight Zhao nursing her own heartache from a personal loss felt transformed On my way to work I listened to the song she says And my own pain and exhaustion lifted I uncovered myself reaching my hand out toward the window I think I was trying to touch the rain Hamnet could have been a movie about Shakespeare s genius talent one that we d watch with awe and admiration Instead it s a movie filled with misjudgments and unarticulated pains where a play becomes an outreached arm and a bridge between trauma and survival Late in filming a then-distraught Zhao looking for a quiet space to let it out wandered for the first time onto the set for Shakespeare s attic in London where he goes to write in the film It s a small disheveled space with not much more than a desk by the window and a bed I got into the bed and lied there It reminded me of my own life living by yourself in hotel rooms like a traveling circus I just lost it Zhao says But I also felt how lucky I am If I didn t have those tools to tell a story I wouldn t have survived Source
