Departures
“It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry,” once sang Bob Dylan, and since then, the rule has remained pertinent. It’s not easy to make audiences giggle with some jokes, but Departures’s directors, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and Neil Ely, found a way to balance dark humour with their accurate delivery.
Yet, it’s even more challenging to make all of us feel saddened. But don’t worry: these guys are experts in playing with our feelings and expectations.
It’s a story based on Eyre-Morgan’s personal experiences. When Benji breaks up with Jake (both played by Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and David Tag), we all want to learn what happened to them. They seem like a great fit; they’re both young and beautiful people, so when the first scene commences with Benji and Jake screaming while ending their relationship, it’s not an enjoyable drama to watch. This tragedy initiates a sudden stream of Benji’s consciousness. He tells us more about himself, how he met Jake for the first time at the airport and what went wrong with their love from the first sight.
Departures never takes any sides, which is not common in modern cinema. Although it’s a vivisection of a toxic relationship (in which one person never treats the other equally), Eyre-Morgan and Ely allow us to feel sorry instead of judge any of these colourful personalities.
What also makes Departures rather special is its self-referential nature. Whenever Eyre-Morgan appears on screen or as a non-diegetic narrator, he’s never scared to act like an exhibit in a museum. He’s just there, mentally naked, audacious to be examined by the audience, not intimidated to show his most vulnerable sides.
It’s always a leap of faith for a filmmaker to become so honest (after all, it seems like Eyre-Morgan’s character is his alter ego), but the actor-director survived this jump without any perturbations. Why? He was just completely frank with his viewers.
That’s what constitutes him as a human being. This is also how you gain the trust of your audience. Although it’s a low-budget comedy (you can see it in the way it’s shot, often in indoor scenes), it stands out because it’s so real, genuine and heartfelt. You don’t have to be a part of the LGBTQIA+ community to root for all these characters. Every viewer will find something for himself/herself, no matter if it’s the film’s humour or its poignant take on toxic masculinity.
We’ve all had our ups and downs, so it’s quite easy to be affected by Departures. Even life is one huge departure: just like Benji, you never know what (or who) you will find when your plane takes off.
Jan Tracz
Departures does not have a release date yet.
Read more reviews from our BFI Flare coverage here.
For further information about the event visit the BFI Flare website here.
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