I Want You

After eight years in prison, sentenced for murder, Martin returns to his hometown by the English coast. He seeks contact with his old love, Helen, who rejects him. She has befriended Honda, a 14-year old boy who has not spoken a word since he had a traumatic experience a few years earlier. He starts looking around in Martin's and Helen's past and witnesses how Martin forces his way back into her life.
A short description of the story might give the impression that this is a conventional thriller. It differ, however, sharply from other works in this genre, by placing the emphasis on the creating of the mood in favor of the story. A contributory cause in creating this is Slawomir Idziak's cinematography, filled with atmosphere. The often empty exterior-shots in the barren landscape, are contrasted with the more filled image compositions of the interiorscenes. He has used different filters that give the shots different colour-scales depending on where and what time of the day it is. In one place he even changes colours in the middle of a take.
Beside the odd visual style of the film, the character portrayals add to the very special atmosphere. They have concentrated on the characters' way of being instead of using them as instruments to carry the story forward. The film gives a pretty unnerving feeling. The characters all seem to be hiding something, and the way they live out their desires and needs is often twisted. They have, I say this running the risk to sound preachy, an unhealthy relationship to themselves and to their surroundings.
I Want You is told through the refugee boy, Honda's eyes - and ears. He compensates his muteness by recording everything he experiences. With his soph isticated equipment he can listen in on other people's conversations that take place
far away. From his recordings he creates cacaphonic sound collages. They give
him flashes of memory, that we get to see. I n these sequences the images are weirdly disjointed and jumpy, his memories are
as chaotic as his collages of sound. In this way hearing and seeing are equal in
I Want You; if there are images missing from an event, the sounds are produced.
LOVE GUSTAFSSON

Premiärstatus
Svensk premiär: Medverkande
Rachel Weisz, Allessandro Nivola, Luka Petrusic: Producent
Andrew Eaton: Manus
Eoin McNamee: Foto
Slawomir Idziak: Talat språk
English