Watching Leslie’s journey from lost runaway to absolute devotee of a madman is an exercise in the mechanisms behind loneliness, a yearning to belong, and to be free.
All of this is delicately handled by a deft directorial style commanded by Occhipinti with subtle poise. So much of the film is so quiet but for the smacking sounds of large meals being chewed and slurped. The louder scenes tend to be celebratory like an all-girls soiree where friends can let it all hang out in private.
Wearing the guise of a coming-of-age movie, this is actually a far more nuanced and layered character study of a young woman facing abuse, betrayal and disappointment from almost every corner of her life – and yet remaining almost relentlessly defiant in the face of it all.
Austin is the victim of its own success. Real estate is out of control. Taxes are going up. Wealthier residents are attracted to the Texan capital and the good old days of dirt-poor guitar players making it on minimum job wages by day then hitting the stage by night to try their luck at a music career are fading.
The audience is primed for the usual suspects – hungry animal or potential rapist. But where Hafsia’s true adversary lies is in her mind. In other scenes, she is trying to commune with nature, and later with god. “What is the answer?” she demands to the empty woods. “You know what I am talking about!” she insists angrily. It is evident here that she herself cannot articulate the nature of her own angst.
Combined with Kirby’s imagery, that Lovecraft feel is more than complete – it makes us really, really uncomfortable. They Remain leans heavily on such classic audiovisual tropes which can evoke everything from Universal Monsters to the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, but bent towards that Dunwich Horror sort of ethos. Which is to say – there’s nothing cartoonish or “safe” about the film’s horror.
What stands out in the film is just how much the flat earthers simply need to believe what they believe. It’s kind of like refusing to believe that OJ was guilty or maybe even letting go of the Santa Claus myth. The characters in the film are all too familiar. They’ve chosen to attach their identity to this belief system, and it means everything.
By the end of the film, some of the life changes the attorneys go through are disruptive enough, the audience is left wondering if their good work will be undone by their own circumstances. It was hard to not to cry, and even feel ashamed. After all, we’re all part of the system of cruelty, injustice and vengeance which works harder to take down street-level ladies while their abusive masters most often live well.
perhaps that’s Proserpio’s ultimate achievement here. He gets us to think about what it is we do, what it is we love, and what it is that motivates us, all in the microcosm of one humble Banksy work. It’s fair to say, this documentary may have more lasting impact than some of the short-lived street art it’s talking about.
The artist just refused to give of himself to the people around him. Perhaps the film made that decision, too. Those missing pieces we yearn for simply might not be available, just as the artist refused to make his own soul available to those closest to him. Except, of course, through his art – but that was only incidental.
