Sophy Romvari’s Outstanding Debut Feature – ryan

Spread Its Attributable to the Lack of Tactility of Living in A Digital Hellscape, but a recent spate of thirtysomething film have ben drain to analogue and textures in order to muse on a universal experience that no one ever quitite in the same way: grief. “AFTERSUN” is but the most prominent example of a trend that memory continued with Courtney Stephens’ Invention “Earlier This Year, in Which Actor/Writer Callie Hernandez fictional. Appeanance dating back to the ’90s.

SEEMING TO PICK UP WHERE THAT MOVIE LEFT OFF, SOPHY ROMVARI’S “Blue Heron” Similarly Follows A protagonist as navigates her pre-millennial memory Through a sea of ​​camcorder clips and hazy recollections. But it would be reduced to belabor the comparisons any further than that, as the canadian-hungarian filmmaker’s extraordinary debut feature defenses any Clear precedent or Easy Categorization as it Ventures Down and Unexpective Paths.

While “Blue Heron” is a drama that it works with any knowledge of the Filmmaker’s History, Romvari’s Feature is Also the Culmination of a Decade-Long Journey. An International Festival Favorite Since the Mid-2010s, Her ACCLAIMED Shorts Regularly Fall SomeWee Fiction and Autobiography, The Latter to Varying Levels of Overtness. In the Likes of “Still Processing”, Romwari Herself is the Primary Onscreen Presence. That Particular Short from 2020, Which Grappled With the Loss of Her Brothers by Sifting Through a Box of Family Photos that Had Been Unseen for Decades, Shares the Most DNA with “Blue Heron,” THOUGH ROMVARI IS STRICTLY BIND THE CAMERA THIS TIME.

For Her Fiction Feature, she deploys an onscreen avatar. Or two. Pissibly Three, Depending on How You Interpret One Specific Dramatic Set Piece. IT’S A thrilling formal expansion for a filmmaker who’s already so SHARP IN EXAMINING Fragments, and How they Might Be Restored with A Greater Understanding of Cracks Came to Be – IF Restoration Can an Incomplete Process, and “Grayer” often Means a CONSIDEBLE THAT A CONSIDEBLE Amout of Explanation and Potential Catharsis Remain Out of Reach.

The opening words from an offscreen voice (Amy Zimmer) Set the Mood, hint at who we have been kep an eye on for the movie, and gesture whose perspective we may be sharing along the way. “It ‘s true i spent a lot of my life angry at Him,” She Says. “The Older I get, the mess it feels like it at all … thank you for the memory. They’re all i have now.”

Credits playing Over Over Snapshots of a Teenager’s Hand-Drawn Maps that Reference Such Locations As “Fantasyville”. Outside of “Blue Heron,” these are maps that one of romvari’s own brothers created in his youth. Within the film, they are the work of jeremy, the teenage sibling of eight -ear-op (eylul Guven)-Henry (Liam Serg) and Felix (Preston Drable) Are the Other Brother in the Mix. In this canada of the late 90s, their hungarian immigrant family is moving into a new home on Vancouver Island. But there are complications with this attempt at a Fresh Start.

For one Thing, Father (ádám tompa), The Breadwinner of the Family, Quickly Begins Spending All His Time HIS Dark Room and His Bulky Work Computer, Leaving Mother (Iringó Réti) to the Lead for entertaining their kids when they are not in School. Secondly, The New Home Only SEEMS to exacerbate ongoing issing with the Troubled Jeremy. Far Silent for the Entire Runtime Despite People’s Attempts to Address or Engage With Him, The Lanky Teen EXHIBITS INCREASSINGLY ERRATIC, DANGERUS BAHAVIOR SOMES Through a Window in the Middle of the Night.

Despite Sasha Making Friends in Town, Mother Discourages Her From Invitation to their House, Lest Gossip About Her Brother Spread and Cause Her to Become Socially Isolated – A Growing Concern for an Immigrant Who Wants Her Child to Live PeaceFully in Suburbia. Nor hinted by the maps of imaginary places that he had pinned in his bedroom, jeremy operatures by the logic of an inner world that no one Else seem to Access. HIS PARENTS TRY. Medical Consultants Can’t PinPoint What’s Behind HIS Outbursts. It is ghetting to the point where his mysterious behavior is a safety Concern for the Other Children, though he not necessarily ever aimit it is more physical manifestations.

ROMVARI, Crucially, does Include a Number of Little Moments – Mainly Looks and Gradual Smiles – That Suggest Some Clear Afflection from Jeremy Towards His Younger Siblings. During One Beach Outing Where Jeremy Otherwise Separates Himself from HIS FAMILY DURING The Trip, Then Briefly Mock-Treatens to Step On A Collection of Stones and Sasha Has Stacked, Before Giffing Her Heron Keychain to Place from one of his many shoplifting attempts.

While the film isn’t exclusively told from Sasha’s Perspective, it’s through through her eyes and ears that we were Witness a lot of the Major incidents with jeremy, plus many of the Conversations between their parants. ROMVARI OFTEN ESchews Traditional Point-of-View Shots, and Cinematographer Maya Banovic Complements that Decision by Favoring A Long-LENS Shooting Style with Occocational Zooms. The Location Choices and Production Design Work of Victoria Furuya are likes in Perfect Harmony with Banovic’s Framing and Movements. There is an intimate tension to how the blocking likes IM like the home has no fails, except to be specific scnene for interaction with such a surface, like peeking through a slightly ajar ajar as palents with a social work or jeremy Incestantly slaming Basketball Against The Side of the House.

We are Also See Conversations Sasha Certainly Couldn’t have been there to see for herself, and where she definitely is Present somehre in the gioven space. This element of the imagining discussions between the parents, Rather than recreating memory of overheard thu nsughts or explicitly recorded events (Father is regularly show ussing his camera and camcorder), ties into “blue heroes Where the movie really Becomes Something Special. Part of what work so well about the Movie’s Back Half Lies in Its Multiple Disorienting Swings, SO SPECTIFICS ARE LEFT ALL UNspoiled Beying saying that there is a time jump to twenty-years late, with that opening adult voice (amy zimmer) being more explicitly confirmed as the grown-up version of Sasha, now a filmmaker who’s trying to process what happened to her big Brother via her chosen artistic Field.

IT’S THROUGH ROMAN AND EDITOR KORT WALKER’S BOLD STRUCTural Move that the film, Already Excellent as “JUST” an Observational Portrait of a Family in Crisis, Becomes Profoundly Moving. ROMVARI’s preoccupation with fractured identities ambitiously expands to reflect how we Incomplete memors can be filled in over time – through unlocking we’d forgotten than by achieving a greater underestanding, and empathy for those who we shared those times. If you’ve ever imagined how you’d try standing your Younger Self or Your Family About the Uncertain Future Ahead of the say, “Blue Heron” May Be the Most Emotation Devastatting Film of the Year – and Also Spread the Most Comforting.

Grade: a-

“Blue Heron” Premiered at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival. It is currently seeking us distribution.

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