Darkest Miriam

Bluesky

Sometimes grief can leave one feeling as if one is looking at life from a distance.

Our first glimpse of Miriam (Britt Lower) is through her apartment window. She’s doing ordinary things, perhaps carrying out her morning routine, and doesn’t seem to be aware that anyone is watching. Soon she will emerge as the central subject of Naomi Jaye’s off-centre comedy drama, and yet that sense of distance will never fully go away. When we accompany her to the library where she works, she introduces us to its staff and regulars one by one, including her father – before acknowledging that he has recently died.

Screened as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, Darkest Miriam makes use of absurdist humour to explore the sense of unreality that such a bereavement can create. We see its heroine embark on a new relationship with an immigrant she meets in the park, and there is sweetness, and there are moments of hope, but the accompanying strains of Rigoletto sound a warning. Miriam must learn to accept instability and find her own balance in a world that just won’t behave.

There’s a sense here of quirkiness for its own sake. The various peculiarities of the library’s patrons suggest a wealth of narrative possibilities but don’t really lead anywhere. As she describes them, however, we learn something about how she sees the world, and her awkwardness within it begins to make more sense. It’s matched by self-consciously odd framing choices, especially where people are concerned. Constantly aware of the presence/absence of her father, she seems to be drifting along in search of a new home for her heart, but the main thing she has in common with shy Slovenian Janko (Tom Mercier) is that he too seems cut off from the world.

Always beautiful to look at, the film is more poem than prose, less interested in progress than in acknowledging these moments of stillness within a life. Every now and again, we see Miriam quietly sobbing, and it feels as if her tears might wash away a little of the fog that occludes her vision. She works. She cycles along leafy streets, She likes to sit in the park and read. She is waiting for something to happen, but when it does, it will not offer any easy resolution. Every now and again, a lingering, voyeuristic shot reminds us of our own presence, like an accusation. Miriam controls the narrative, which is distincty more confident, even overtly comic, yet she does not control the camera’s gaze. We are being granted intimate access to something we were not meant to see.