20/20 Filmsight - Film Criticism by David O'Connell

In Braden King’s Here, an American cartographer, Will (Ben Foster), ventures into the mostly barren landscape of Armenia for his latest assignment. A loner who works best when adhering to his own rules, Will has a chance encounter with a photographer, Gadarine (Lubna Azabal); both are drifters, refusing to be tethered to a single location. He needs to keep moving, and Gadarine, just back from an overseas assignment and reluctant to confront the mild resentment of her family, offers to be his guide.

Here is distinguished by its sense of poetry which frames the narrative with abstractions at its margins whilst simultaneously grounding it in realistic perceptions of the Armenian landscape and its people. Minute observations accrue from the meditative pacing, forcing admirably fleshed-out portrayals of the protagonists into view. A sense of the pair inevitably having to part hangs over proceedings but our investment in their journey, which develops an intimate bond, doesn’t go unrewarded.

This modest, unassuming road movie may have felt watered down in lesser hands but King - who co-wrote the screenplay with Melbourne writer Dani Valent - has left his personal mark on the film. Plenty of wide, slow pans emphasise the vast open spaces compressing upon Will and Gadarine. And yet alongside the potential suffocation are the freedom and possibilities for bonding with a stranger; exacerbated impressions that establish a barrier against an alien environment. Without the easier access afforded by language this is something that Will is far more attuned to.

Casting is everything sometimes and Here (2011) offers no greater exemplification of this. Foster, especially, gives another impressive performance. His quiet intensity, so successfully utilised by Oren Moverman for The Messenger (2009), is perfectly complimented by the ever-impressive Azabal, whose work in films like Strangers (2007) and Incendies (2010), has provided her a well-deserved international profile.



I say: A low-key drama takes pains to build a framework around which its interesting main characters can develop without contrivance.

See it for: The wonderful pairing of Foster and Azabal.