source: Exhibition

Reminiscent of an impressionist painting or a play by Harold Pinter, characters and plot are not spelt out and the viewer has to put in a little effort to understand. It's not mainstream and you won't enjoy it if that's what you're looking for. However it makes rewarding viewing if you don't mind giving serious thought into what you're seeing on the screen.

I love art films don't get me wrong but this is just a plain bore. Even the female leads two attempts at * don't titillate. Furthermore they don't add anything to the story either. Though, I do enjoy the scene where she plays with the blinds *. That at least had something visually striking to it. Honestly I'd be surprised if this filmmaker will get financing to ever make a film again. The neighborhood is clearly the most attractive thing about the film. The house and it's furnishings are obviously posh and eye-catching so in effect they are the most important thing about this film. But these two aspects a film doesn't make.

A middle aged, middle class couple (artist and architect) are considering selling their modernist London home. Their relationship, values and lifestyle are critically investigated. There is little meaningful communication between the couple with closeness replaced by endless analysis and polite observations. Meaning in their lives appears to come from intellectualizing the minutiae of everyday life as something profound. The obsession with their home could be a substitute for a relationship. A potentially clever film with possibly valid insights into contemporary life, however, the film is perhaps too long for what is delivered and perhaps a dramatic, life changing event in the latter half would have justified the duration.

The term 'Art Film' can sometimes mean an interesting, unique experience full of symbolic possibility, or it can be a code word for pretentious bore-fest! Exhibition easily falls in the latter. D (Viv Albertine) and H (Liam Gillick) are a married couple who live in what Al Pacino from 'Heat' would describe as a 'Bullshit postmodern apartment!' They are both artists and have their own studio in separate rooms. They communicate to each other by using the speaker phone, and there is a spiral staircase which unites the house. We see D sitting around in her room moving a stool around and sitting on it, putting together some kind of conceptual art performance which symbolises something. There is a shot of her lying on a rock or opening cupboard doors and other random, pedestrian activities which I don't care about. There seems to be tension between the couple. D does not like to talk to H about her art because he might be honest to the point of insensitive. H tries to occasionally assert his manhood by trying to have sex with her but she resists. More scenes of them sitting around talking about stuff and waffle about the house being a living and breathing entity which harbours good vibrations within the walls. They have to sell the house for some reason, but D wants to stay and blah blah blah! I found it so tedious and so monotonous, I started looking away from the screen as I did not care what was going on at all. Both characters were unlikable, un-relatable and a couple of hollow, ostentatious snobs making the kind of art which is disposable and meaningless. With all these glowing reviews stating how enigmatic and sensual it was, I had no feelings of any kind of enigma or sensuality whatsoever. Was I missing something? Clearly I am the wrong target audience here who has no care for understanding whatever the point of this film was. I am sure it's not that important…. to non pretentious people anyway!

I'm not sure why the first reviewer felt the need to attack Hogg personally and trash her aesthetic. Her removed, mesmeric method of filming people in relationships isn't for everyone, but she will appeal to viewers interested in unconventional approaches and who appreciate not having characters' emotions spelled out at every step. As with her earlier film Archipelago, the characters reveal themselves solely through their actions and speech in a context of mundane everyday life, but Exhibition ventures into fantasy/dream-state in a way that helps expose the inner reality of D, the wife who seems almost trapped in a house that is as much a character as its human inhabitants. Something happened at one point that we are not privy to, but it has deeply affected D. One could say that she and the house are haunted, and it acts as a defining structure for her relationship with her husband H. Its spaces are strictly defined as to who lives where, as both artists work next to, but separate from, each other. We are given glimpses of each through short interactions, attempts at lovemaking, and H's sense of control contrasted with D's retreat. She seems passive and self-protective, and their decision about the house will change everything. The movie may be considered "boring" by people addicted to action, or who can't stand having negative space where an explanation "should" be. The film isn't slowly paced, but as with her other films, the spaces between are as important as what the characters say. Get acquainted with Hogg's work and be surprised at how affecting it is.

I have just finished watching Hogg's three films on Netflix. "Exhibition" is the most recent. I see a progression in her work from "Unrelated" through "Archipelago", but not in this film. Her strong points are setting and character. She obviously has no interest in plot. She uses superficial circumstance as her plot line. Summer in Italy, holiday on the Isles of Scilly, posh house in the city being sold. The production values are good. The films are all interesting visually. The casts are also good. The scenes form a collage, not a painting or sculpture. The overwhelming mood of all three films is boredom. Boredom of people with too much privilege and not enough personal insight or maturity. This is perhaps the most annoying aspect of "Exhibition". Two wealthy narcissists bump into each other in a designer manse. D's so-called performance art is simply a channeling of her sexual and emotional dysfunction. H is a classic enabler and codependent. Even the sadomasochistic element of their relationship is boring. I got something from both "Unrelated" and "Archipelago". I got nothing from "Exhibition" other than a cramp from sitting though it.

Joanna Hogg makes sparse, almost stilted films about uncommunicative, and to my mind, unappealing middle class people. 'Exhibition' is not quite as painful to watch as her earlier film 'Archipelago', but it does feel a little pointless: an architect loves his artistic wife, even though they don't really talk to each other. Her explicit refusal to discuss her work is made exasperating for the viewer because the film doesn't show us it either, at least not in any terms that one could imagine as saleable product: the vision of the artist here is of someone spending time alone, periodically donning weird outfits and standing or sitting in strange positions. Instead of the art-theme predominating, we're just left with the irritating ticks of the overly-fortunate. It feels like an improvisation that was never turned into a finished script.

'Exhibition' provides a credible insight in the marriage of a couple in their fifties. Which may not be too interesting for younger people, but there's no denying that we have a cleverly made & tasteful film on our hands. A feature that may be contrary to present times: 'Exhibition's rather low pace. Producer Joanna Hogg takes her time to explain the workings of this marriage. Including some small individual secrets of the wife, performed well by Viv Albertine (in her younger days a famous Punk-guitarist). Being a child of the 1960-s, I cannot escape to compare 'Exhibition' with Michelangelo Antonioni's famous 'Blow-up'. Which goes in particular for the relaxed build-up of a rather meager story, supported by many moody images. As well as by incorporating some architectural beauty. However, you should do an injustice to 'Exhibition' to regard her as a copy of whatever other film. Joanna Hogg's newest surely has enough quality to stand on its own.

source: Exhibition