H.
Directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
Starring Robin Bartlett, Rebecca Dayan, Will Janowitz and Julian Gamble
H. is a modern interpretation of a classic Greek tragedy in which two women, each named Helen, live out their mirrored lives of one another in the town of Troy, NY. The first Helen is in her 60s, lives with her husband Roy, and takes care of a small, extremely lifelike baby doll called a “Reborn Doll,” which she cares for as a living baby. The second Helen is in her 30s, has a successful art career with her partner Alex, and is four months pregnant. One night, something falls out of the sky and explodes over the town. In the aftermath of this event, bizarre and unexplainable things begin to happen. Many people in the town go missing—Helen’s husband being one of them—and unnatural cloud formations begin appearing in the sky. Meanwhile, the two Helens find themselves, and their lives spinning out of control.
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Reviews
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★★★★½ review by The Discreet Charm on Letterboxd
This film is soo my speed - eerie, hard to explain and quietly intense.
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★★★★½ review by Vonne Patiag on Letterboxd
An alluring and strangely addictive mystery film that unfolds intensively slowly. A strange occurrence in the sky affects the lives of two women living in Troy, New York, one pregnant, another an older woman caring for a fake plastic baby. Mysterious events unfold invoking Hair, Horses, and a strange Head floating down the Hudson. Yes, everything to do with H.
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★★★½ review by Alejandro Hernández on Letterboxd
I did not entirely understand what happened, but it didn't matter, because the film was so beautifully paced and enigmatic that all the mysterious elements elevated the story into an original, spellbinding and utterly bizarre experience.
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★★★½ review by strawberry on Letterboxd
I may be guilty of occasionally giving a pass to movies that lack a plot but have everything else in spades. This movie has it all - great acting, evocative cinematography, enchanting soundtrack, weird spine-chilling imagery amidst the blandness of moment-to-moment town life. The pacing was slow and beautiful. And - supposedly - it might have a thematic connection to the legend of Helen of Troy - but only because it is set in Troy, features two characters named Helen, a floating Greek head, a horse, and a quote "Ilium fuit, Troja est." But what meaningful connection exists between this strange story of un-Moms in northeastern America and the ancient Greek beauty queen is apparently understood by no one. So, yes, I enjoyed the movie, until its ending left me frustrated. I still believe in plot, I believe a movie should communicate with its audience. Yes, I loved Under the Skin and Tree of Life and Upstream Color etc - why are we not giving this one the same pass we gave so many others? Maybe it really led us to believe that there would and should be answers, and when there weren't, the rest of the movie deflated a little?
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★★★½ review by Smapti on Letterboxd
Eerie, beguiling, and utterly inexplicable, H. is certainly a unique cinematic experience. Normal filmic signposts are withheld in favor of inscrutable images that feel both banal and totemic: a horse meandering in the woods, perfectly geometric cloud formations, water leaking under a fridge. Whether this story of two women beset by odd forces adds up to anything meaningful is unclear, and ultimately H. feels like a benign betrayal of the compact between filmmaker and audience, where each thing we see and hear is supposed to lend itself to some whole. Is this a good or bad thing, aesthetically speaking? I don't really know, but this mix of deadpan realism punctuated by bursts of matter-of-fact weirdness surely casts a spell.
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