Lucile Hadzihalilovic has always been a director with a focus on atmosphere over story. The filmmaker behind 2004's Innocence has always had an innate talent for communicating her work through aesthetics and mood. Her characters are barely verbal and only understood in the broadest of terms, often purely through performance. Instead, we rely on the look of the film; the colours, tones and sounds to get a sense of what Hadzihalilovic wishes to convey.
That leaves Earwig hanging in a sort of cinematic limbo, doing everything very effectively, except telling any kind of coherent narrative. More of a story premise than anything else. Following a man named Albert (Paul Hilton) who is tasked with the wellbeing of Mia, a girl only able to eat with dentures made of ice. No explanation is given for Mia's dental impairments nor why ice is the only solution, it simply lets the inherent weirdness of the concept and imagery speak for itself.
For a story though, complete with twists and turns and arcs it proves to be the wrong approach. Hadzihalilovic takes a mechanical, Kafka-esque approach to characters. Presenting them as mere fleshy cogs trapped in an unthinking, unfeeling machine. For the most part they obey instructions, delivered by a disembodied voice on the phone, and only seem to reach breaking point once. Nothing is even invested the process of this unknowable machine, when simple things like the crafting of the dentures or the experience of eating with them as a child would build so much character. Earwig does not even try to shock us with the premise's Cronenbergian body horror.
Rather the film is more of a mood piece with the setting of a twisted gothic fable. Something the Brothers Grimm might have written on Victorian era dentistry. We wallow in captivity with these characters. The pale-yellow tones allow us to share in their sickness of body and mind. A score of sharp, synth music pierces our eardrums and unsettles our hearts. Earwig is very much a film about the fear of disease. Where the human body must be isolated away from its ugly reality. Hadzihalilovic allows us to share in Mia and Albert's isolation until they are both forced to confront the truth.
If, like me, you stubbornly believe film is best when acting as a narrative medium, Earwig is unlikely to satisfy your urges. It is perhaps one of the most immerse cinematic experiences you'll have all year. However, without any context to the emotional ride, through you could find yourself left out in the cold.
Earwig was released in UK Cinemas on June 10th.
