Romola: This particular book that I was reading completely separately was the initial jumping off point for the specific idea for this film. ![]() I understand there was a particular book you read that inspired you as well. ![]() He cannot and should not be allowed to shut the door on that forever and just go back to an ordinary life. I wanted to write about a man, who’s a good man but a man nevertheless, who has allowed violence into his life. If you are violent, then it corrupts you. It’s all acceptable because he’s fighting evil. If you watch an action movie or a superhero film or something, the male protagonist is violent. Oftentimes a hero is committed to be violent, and violence is meted out in a morally acceptable way. Romola Garai: The thing that drew me to it initially was this idea of the hero and what constitutes a hero in a film. What is your monster, Romola, and what drew you to this story as a first feature? ![]() The so-called “monster” could be a substitute for trauma, the patriarchy, whathaveyou, without being quite so literal. Horror as a genre feels most potent whenever it holds a mirror up to society and excavate something that goes far beyond the superficially grotesque. Dodging the reveal, it’s a real feast for the eyes.Īmulet world premiered as a midnight screening at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26th. Soon enough, Tomaz’s two timelines intersect in wholly unpredictable ways, drawing the connections between that fatefully intervening nun, the talisman Tomaz discovered in the woods, the terrified woman from his past, and the secrets that all three inhabitants are hiding. At the dilapidated house in which he now finds himself, Tomaz is tasked with tending to the household needs of Magda (Juri), an awkward and withdrawn young woman, and her sickly mother sequestered on the top floor who it turns out is keeping her daughter a virtual prisoner and abusing her as well. Coming to in a hospital, Tomaz is greeted by Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton), who was able to save what precious little he has and furthers her generosity in offering him a live-in job opportunity. His PTSD from war is such that he binds his arms and feet with duct tape before sleep to prevent injury in the throes of his night terrors, which makes escape difficult when a presumed anti-immigrant fanatic sets fire to the place and he barely makes it out intact. In the present day, Tomaz leads a rootless existence picking up odd gigs as a day laborer while living in a squat with other refugees. In short order, two key things transpire, which will become important in the film’s climax: Tomaz discovers a small carved figurine under the topsoil in the forest-the titular object-and a distressed woman sprinting towards his outpost enters his orbit. As the film opens, Tomaz is manning a checkpoint in solitude on a little-traveled road miles from the nearest village. Plus, Garai is expectedly hyper-attentive to the modulations of her fellow actors’ performances and Amulet proves a dazzling showcase for both Carla Juri and Alec Secareanu, who seal the action.Īmulet unfolds in two intertwining timelines: Tomaz’s (Secareanu) past as a soldier in an unnamed foreign conflict, and in the now as an immigrant living in London. ![]() It’s an uncommonly confident outing for a first-time feature director. Ruminating on the themes of sin, accountability, irrevocable regret and gender, the multi-layered feminist horror unspools with great finesse with Garai leading the charge. Actress-turned-filmmaker Romola Garai’s Amulet trumpeted her arrival as an audacious new visionary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
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