Sun Choke review [Frightfest 2015]: “Beautifully crafted and exquisitely shot”

Sun Choke review: An enthralling and engaging film that just creeps up on you again and again.

Director: Ben Cresciman
Cast: Sara Malakul Lane, Sarah Hagan, Evan Jones, Barbara Crampton
Running Time: 83 Minutes
Certificate: TBC

Synopsis: Recovering from a recent violent psychotic break, a young woman finds herself relapsing after developing a deadly obsession with an unsuspecting woman named Savannah whilst her lifelong caretaker and nanny struggles to control and pull her back from the brink of insanity.

As the credits begin to roll on Ben Cresciman’s Sun Choke, my mind is blank…contemplative, but blank. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a good thing and the type of reaction one would like to have when experiencing this kind of psychological thriller.

Beautifully crafted and exquisitely shot by Mathew Rudenberg, Sun Choke feels like a dream but with a through line full of haunting discomfort. It’s as if you yourself are on a precipice: not knowing whether you liked the film purely because its aesthetically appealing despite being unsure if you actually understood the story or if it’s because you managed to put the vague and disjointed story together and could understand the context in which its egregious deviance mirrors the disconnectedness associated with psychotic breaks.

Recovering from a recent violent psychotic break, Janie (Sarah Hagan) finds herself following a strict and bizarre regime of holistic health and wellbeing designed and enforced by her lifelong caretaker and nanny Irma (Barbara Crampton) within the confines of her Hollywood Hills home. When she displays behaviours that indicate that she appears to be slowly regaining her mental balance, Irma allows Janie to start leaving the house for short periods of time so that she can learn to slowly reintegrate herself back in to society.

During Janie’s trip outside the confines of her home, she soon sees herself in a young woman who is driving in the opposite direction. Deciding to follow the young woman, the moment forms the catalyst for Janie’s obsessive stalking and mental regression. She follows her home, breaks in to her house, and attempts to befriend the young woman who she soon learns is Savannah. As her obsessive stalking intensifies and her mental stability wavers, Janie’s thoughts and actions become more violent towards Irma (who notices her slipping control), Savannah, and towards Savannah’s lover Lincoln (William Nicol).

The camera reiterates this wavering mentality with its mixed shots and angles both in and out of focus. So too does the water motifs seen throughout the film like a conduit between healing and purifying her thoughts to the bloody ends of her victims. The minimalist production design and slow paced tone is quite clinical in its precision and acts as the perfect offset to the outstanding performances by the actors within it.

Whilst this all sounds intellectually explorative (and boring), Sun Choke is actually a poetically enthralling and engaging film that just creeps up on you again and again. It’s almost as obsessively stalkerish as its protagonist.

Sun Choke review by Sacha Hall, August 2015.

 Sun Choke will celebrate its European Premiere at Frightfest on Saturday 29 August 2015 at 9:00 pm.