★★★★
Orlando von Einsiedel turns his camera on his own family as they attempt to cope with a devastating loss. Thirteen years after his brother Evelyn's suicide, the remaining family set out on a hiking tour, visiting landscapes Evelyn liked to walk, to reflect on his life and death.
Classification: 15
A deeply intimate and emotional look into the aftermath of suicide, Orlando von Einsiedel uses his skills as a filmmaker to confront his repressed grief and guilt over his brother Evelyn's suicide. A taboo topic within his family for years, the audience is given a candid and raw experience of a family coming to terms with their tragedy as the camera doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable emotions being put on display. Orlando admits that the very thought of his brother brings him to tears, that for years he couldn't even say Evelyn's name and it's clear from the beginning that the documentary isn't an exploitative look into his family's grief for artistic praise but a tool to help people begin to understand the effects of suicide. It is about these siblings, this extended family coming together through this commemorative hike and using it as an opportunity to heal, allowing for moments of levity, tension, laughter, tears and catharsis. Orlando von Einsiedel invites the audience to be a part of his family, to take part in the healing as their pain isn't exclusive, we have all experienced loss in different ways and Evelyn is about that search for those moments that help us move forward.
Orlando and his two siblings are his companions on his hiking tour from Scotland to London, but the tour gives the documentary a structure of a journey in parts as essential figures from Evelyn's life join the walking for sections along the way. His mother, father, best friends all separately accompany the cavalcade of emotional catharsis and the rotation of different viewpoints helps Orlando and the rest face uncomfortable truths about themselves and each other. Especially during the section where they are joined by their father Andreas, a sense of dread and tension can be felt on camera with almost every interaction he has with his children. Evelyn isn't about von Einsiedel's placing blame on whomever or whatever was responsible for Evelyn's suicide but coming to terms with their complicated emotions entwined from all this repressed grief. The tension breaks with tears, fights, and passive-aggressive statements and is evident during Andreas's section of the journey that the uncomfortable history between the family has more issues than just Evelyn's death.
The camera captures all, von Einsiedel understands that these outspoken moments dealing with the repercussions of finally talking about Evelyn will mean nothing if they are diluted or reframed to make the experience less uncomfortable for the audience. Even Orlando himself is called out for using his role as director to hide from his own emotions, he is asking the questions rather than answering them. At no point in Evelyn does it become unrealistic or melodramatic, it can be difficult to watch at points but only because of the intimacy on display, its real grief on display and it can feel intrusive to watch this even though it is the documentary's intention. Its beauty of the emotion combined with the beauty of the landscapes that make Evelyn a visually gripping film, the vistas of British mountain hiking trails, countryside fields, giving a sense of isolation and freedom for this emotional journey to take place. Along the way, Orlando and his family have chance encounters with strangers usually a curious local wondering why a camera crew is following some hikers. Orlando uses this as his opportunity to speak of Evelyn, explaining to someone who doesn't know his baggage about the event that haunts him, it allows him to regain some control about this history through telling a stranger. While his companions may be more hesitant to reveal this to others on their journey, the openness is rewarded as by chance some of these individuals have their own experience with death and suicide and it allows this journey not to just honour Evelyn but to allow real conversations about suicide and its effects to take place.
Evelyn is really about the emotions, not the details of death, a very intimate portrait of a family showing how the impact of this event never fades from a family. While von Einsiedel's journey relates to suicide, the catharsis they can extract from the film is both a personal and universal feeling. It's about these people coming to an understanding, not only for what happened to their brother but finding a new foundation within their family, that Evelyn doesn't have to be a source of pain for them anymore. It's not a perfect ending or even complete healing, many old wounds are exposed not only to each other but to the audience. The ramifications of it may go beyond what we are allowed to see on the screen but it is the bravery to face this pain that makes Evelyn such an enriching experience. It gives a voice to tragedy, those left behind by suicide and the fact that Orlando von Einsiedel explores this through his own experiences rather than another allows the messaging to resonate with the audience and gives the direction an intimacy that can't be replicated.
Director: #OrlandovonEinsiedel
Cast: #OrlandovonEinsiedel
Release Date: September 10th 2019
Available to stream on Netflix
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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