BFI London Film Festival: Gray House

BFI Film Festival: 243 features. 67 countries. 15 cinemas. 12 days. One Festival.

This dazzling mix of straight documentary and striking visual art makes for a strangely beautiful cinematic experience. Could it be a portrait of alienated America? You don’t want to know too much about director Austin Lynch and photographer Matthew Booth’s compelling first film before seeing it. It's a visceral piece, better experienced than described.

But here are just a few teasing threads: Denis Lavant (Claire Denis and Leos Carax’s darling actor) opens the film as a lone fisherman on a Texan river. The film then progresses across different spaces, alternating between contemplative sequences and direct interviews. Oil rig workers and women sentenced to life in prison share their experience on solitude and isolation, while the camera hauntingly lingers on architecture and the stark beauty of nature. Alvin Lucier's eerie score pulsates and hypnotises. Gray House impresses with its unique cinematic vision, and Lynch and Booth are two major new talents to watch.

(Notes by Laure Bonville)

Gray House, dir Austin Lynch, Matthew Booth, USA 2017, 76 mins

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