REVIEW - MAGIC MAGIC

It's quite thrilling, to watch a film and have no idea where it's heading. Ostensibly, Magic Magic is all misdirection: the title, the marketing, even the preliminary scenes. What do they reveal? What do they suggest? Magic Magic does get there, eventually, to something akin to what you may have imagined at first, but the route it takes, through the Chilean countryside then through the headspace of a young American vacationer, is consistently surprising and disarming. Sebastian Silva, writer and director, keeps one eye on his protagonist Alicia, played by the British actor Juno Temple (whose American accent is, once again, flawless), and another on her companions, increasingly bewildered by her attitude. Silva has an empathetic touch that draws out every facet of his characters' behaviour - not even when the extent of their (unintentional) tormenting is exposed do they display any sign of acknowledgement or apprehension. Alicia's anguish is only to them what it is to them, not what it is to her. No explanation is presented for her state either, further enhancing the discomfort felt by the audience, but experienced by Alicia. She is as confused as we are, in fact surely much more. Silva's supreme filmmaking talents are illustrated in his keen depiction of that oft-discussed line between reality and fiction, which even in hindsight is desperately unclear. And he maintains a formidable grip on the audience, submerging us in this horribly confined space and letting the oxygen level gradually diminish. How he directs this material is not the problem, in the end, it's where he directs it to. What has preceded and what will proceed from hereon is all the more distressing, though its scathing political subtext leavens the darkness, inflects it with genuine power. Trust Christopher Doyle to find colour tones you didn't even know existed - the image is shrouded in shades of taupe and teal and punctuated by brazen yellows. Strong work from the entire cast, but Temple is worthy of special note. Her understanding and transmission of the intense and intricate manifestations of severe mental illness is exceptionally good.