Venice 2022, Tilda Swinton doubles up for ‘the Eternal Daughter’

“The fact that the two characters are represented by the same person makes the film something different, it speaks of something deeper. Of the bond between mother and daughter but also of how much our mother or daughter is our projection. came to life in the film “. Word of Tilda Swinton who returns as protagonist in competition in Venice with ‘The Eternal Daughter’ by Joanna Hogg, in the double role of an artist and her elderly mother who face secrets that have long remained buried. Canary yellow hair (“I’m honored to wear half of the Ukrainian flag”), the actress explains that in reality “it didn’t have to be like this at first”: “I was supposed to be daughter Julie and we were arguing about who could represent her mother. Rosalind. The two return together in the old family home, transformed into a disturbing and mysterious hotel, where a story that mixes autobiography and metacinema takes shape, with the daughter determined to write the next film focused on the relationship with her mother. an actress who gives her daughter a face does it, however, also playing this elderly mother, or what remains of her in memory. “I have always had an interest in the supernatural”, says the director, who returns to direct Tilda Switon after ‘The Souvenir ‘of 2019: a film where Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, starred Julie and Tilda played her mother Rosalind. “Before making Souvenir I actually wanted to do a ghost story. Then I took up this story of mother and daughter that I wanted to tell since 2008 and now I no longer know how to separate the two plots “, says the director. In the dialogues between the two (which never appear framed together)” the simplicity of what appears it does not do justice to the complexity of the work behind it. “” I use improvisation a lot – underlines Joanna Hogg – and I asked myself: how can I do it in a film where Tilda has a double role? My first thought was: I don’t want tricks. I want the camera in front of Julie and Rosalind. “So it was the director herself who acted as sparring partner to the protagonist:” When she was Julie I was Rosaline and when she was Rosaline I was Julie, clearly only filming Tilda. This could only happen because we have been friends for a very long time. “Also because the film did not have a script:” To be clear, the dialogues are improvised – underlines Tilda Swinton – it’s a performance, even if I don’t know if we can call it that. A very special and fantastic way to work. You can go in any direction. There was no script to build upon, there was a vague scaffolding but each scene was a constant invention. Somehow this meant that all the plots were investigated but not too soon. “” The courage is also Tilda’s – adds the director – because we have entered something deep and dark. This is a story I’ve been mulling over for a long time. I always write long before a film but at the time of shooting I no longer care what I wrote, I am interested in emotions “. A process that Tilda Swinton compares to Rubik’s cube,” because in the film as in the cube, you have to have faith it will all make sense after a while, that all sides will fit together but only at the end. And don’t be in a hurry to fix just one side right away. “In the film, mother and daughter have the same voice:” The two characters are so connected that it seemed right that they had the same voice, even if they are also very different. The film plays on projections and on the need to no longer be afraid of the bond, of projections, of mourning “, explains the director who lost her mother during the editing of the film (” but somehow in the shooting I was already working on mourning ” , thanks also to the help of Swinton, who in turn had lost her mother shortly before arriving on set). Was it therapeutic? “Any film for me was therapeutic, because the film must be let go at the end and that is a catharsis, “says Tilda. Did she identify more with the mother or the daughter?” I don’t have an answer, it is possible to identify with both. And this is the meaning of the film “.