Inland
Fridtjof Ryder’s debut feature is a mystery wrapped in a mystery as his abstract tale unfolds in and around the deep forests of Gloucestershire.
Fergus Grant
Fridtjof Ryder’s feature debut is as abstruse as its title. From the off, it feels like a short film that has been given a very modest budget to bulk it up to feature length. However, Ryder, who was just 19-years-old when he started filming, got lucky. During the pandemic he approached Mark Rylance, who was at a loose end and found himself drawn to the ecological aspects of Ryder’s screenplay. The Oscar-winning star also hopped on board as executive producer.
Inland certainly wears its minuscule budget on its sleeve, shot in the woodland surrounding Gloucester, Ryder’s home city, and providing much of the drama’s soundscape. It’s a dreamlike affair – some might say innovative – but seems to be treading water for much of its brief running time, creating artificial tableaux where characters talk to each other at right angles, in between random close-ups bordering on the abstract.
The opening shot of a young boy staring into the woods is mirrored moments later when a young man – presumably the boy as an adult – stares out of frame, waiting for his close-up. There are a lot of staring faces, often out-of-focus, as Inland attempts to build an enigmatic narrative about loss and abandonment. The young man (Rory Alexander) has just been released from psychiatric care and drives around Gloucestershire in search of….? It seems that his mother has gone missing, so he holes up with an old friend, Dunleavy (Mark Rylance), who sleeps with his bedside lamp on and offers the young man a job at his garage. There, briefly, real life would seem to materialise until the young man and his new colleagues visit The Faerie Queene’s, a bizarre, red-lit den with white statuary on stage (we are left to draw our own conclusions).
At times, the film taps into the ambiance of Alex Garland’s Men (2022), which was also shot in Gloucestershire, but which at least had a decent sting in its tale. Here, Fridtjof Ryder seems largely to be musing on interior reflection, hoping that his audience will be patient enough – and enthralled enough – with his off-centre imagery to keep up. Much of it is infuriating, dramatically frustrating, when endless close-ups of Rory Alexander smoking a cigarette become more interesting than a nocturnal scene of a road’s surface speeding past. Ultimately, Inland fails to engage on any emotional or intellectual level, with the muffled music and sound design reflecting the mindset of its unhinged protagonist.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Rory Alexander, Kathryn Hunter, Shaun Dingwall, Eleanor Holliday, Mark Rylance, Alexander Lincoln, Jake Gwilliam, Nell Williams, Reinhild Beuther, Fergus Grant.
Dir Fridtjof Ryder, Pro Henry Richmond, Louis Paine and Fridtjof Ryder, Ex Pro Trudie Styler, Sam Tromans, Zak Brilliant, Shaun Dingwall, Mathew Cook, Toby Cook, Shaun Dingwall, Guy Davies, Annabel Richmond and Thomas R. Atherton, Screenplay Fridtjof Ryder, Ph Ravi Doubleday, Pro Des Ian Blackwell, Ed Joe Walton and Lincoln Witter, Music Bartholomew Mason, Costumes Benjamin Butling.
Twenty 20 Media/Fablemaze/Dva Films/Shakespeare Road/Zebrafish Media-Verve Pictures.
81 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 16 June 2023. Cert. 15.
