Writer-director Sara Summa’s debut feature The Last to See Them is, reportedly, not for everyone. But for this year’s festival, she brings us something slightly more accessible with Arthur&Diana. She and her brother Robin and playing the titular brother and sister camping and road tripping from Berlin to Paris and back. On the way, they’re avoiding law enforcement, playing with guns, and caring for a baby. They also go to a funeral, which reminds them of loss of their own father.
Arthur&Diana isn’t perfect by any means, and I’ll get to the few nitpicks I have against the film, but for now, I’m grateful for a film like this that features competent nighttime photography. It depicts the darkness of the characters’ occasional campsites and homes without having that usually soupy look that contemporary digital photography has. It probably helps that Sara Summa uses something that looks like VHS video, which, in fairness, feels on the nose in depicting the limbo state of these characters.
The other thing about Arhur&Diana that’s bothersome is that it feels like it uses the siblings’ arguments for exciting story beats, although fine, I’ll give it a pass despite of that. It helps that it incorporates a few things to make itself more dynamic. The dream sequence is effective, and so is its exploration of identity of these characters as they live in 21st century Europe. The funeral scene also makes sense within a film that’s low stakes yet shows its heart in unique ways.
- Rated: NR
- Genre: Drama
- Release Date: 9/9/2023
- Directed by: Sara Summa
- Starring: Robin Summa, Sara Summa
- Written by: Sara Summa
