This ghost story starts with a funeral. Then the questions begin to pile up

FILM
Went Up The Hill ★★★
(MA) 100 minutes

I was not surprised to learn that Samuel Van Grinsven’s ghost story was influenced by Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. It’s pervaded by a strong sense of Nordic gloom and punctuated by some very long silences.

Dacre Montgomery and Vicki Krieps in Went up the Hill.Credit: Kirsty Griffin

It’s actually set in New Zealand and that, too, is hardly surprising. Perhaps it’s the climate, but New Zealand does a strong line in films that exploit the loneliness of the landscape. One of Went Up the Hill’s producers calls this genre “the cinema of unease”, which is pretty close to the mark.

This example begins with a funeral. Jack (Dacre Montgomery) nervously arrives at a service commemorating the death of Elizabeth, the woman who gave him up when he was three years old.

She was a famous architect and her coffin is lying in the austere entry hall to the grand house she designed on an isolated stretch of countryside for herself and her much younger wife, Jill (Vicky Krieps). Jack thinks that Jill invited him to be there but as time goes on, the truth of this is added to the film’s many riddles.

One thing is clear: Elizabeth’s fierce-looking sister, Helen (Sarah Peirse), is not pleased to see him. Nonetheless, he remains, and when everyone else leaves, he and Jill stay on in the house to see if they can help each other settle the unfinished emotional business that Elizabeth has left behind.

Went Up the Hill is pervaded by a strong sense of Nordic gloom and punctuated by some very long silences.Credit: Kirsty Griffin

Van Grinsven and his co-writer, Jory Anast, are in no hurry to have these questions answered. Before you can work out where the script is taking you, you must feel your way through the shadowy rooms and passageways of the house. Van Grinsven doesn’t believe in shedding a lot of light on the action. His palette is mostly made of shades of grey accented by one or two colours. Nor could the dialogue be described as conversational. But in some well-staged dream and fantasy sequences, he does give you enough clues to divine the fact that Elizabeth’s spirit is possessing both Jack and Jill at different times during their nights together.

We discover that Jill is trying to make peace with some troubling memories of Elizabeth, while Jack, who has grown up in foster care, is cherishing the hope that she regretted surrendering him.

Krieps and Montgomery are remarkably adroit in managing the dizzying shifts in pitch and personality dictated by the movements of Elizabeth’s restless spirit, and all the mysteries are eventually resolved in a way that makes psychological sense during the lead-up to a powerful finish.

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It takes us out of the house into the surrounding landscape – a wintry wasteland replete with frozen lake. But I was bored by the portentous nature of it all long before we were given any answers. By the time we got to the exciting bit, the sense of menace was rapidly dissipating and dread was beginning to lapse into self-consciousness.

Went Up the Hill is in cinemas from today

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