Writer and Director: Alex Burunova
Satisfaction may be the most traumatic film screening at this year’s BFI Flare. Its striking colour palette of whites and dusty blues hides a dark secret at the heart of the relationship between two composers working on their new album on a Greek island. Lola and Philip get little work done, and their love affair is reaching its end.
It begins with Lola (an imposing, unyielding Emma Laird) refusing to eat the breakfast that Philip has brought her in bed. She looks sick, fatigued. However, she perks up when she later goes alone to the local nudist beach. Another lone woman catches her eye; a flirtation that will continue over the next few days.
However, Satisfaction is not a romantic movie. The encounter at the beach is not a traditional meet-cute. That something more sinister exists in the fracture of Lola and Philip’s relationship is made apparent when Lola walks past a house in which a husband and wife are fighting. She asks one of the women peering into the window whether the police have been called. The woman replies that there is no point, as Greek police can only enter a scene of domestic violence if the wife screams for help.
Alex Burunova’s semi-autobiographical film then flashes back to another first meeting; that of Lola and Philip. At a New Year’s Eve party in London, Philip is impressed by Lola’s piano playing. He is less impressed when she introduces him to her girlfriend. Nevertheless, as a bi-woman, Lola appears to be attracted to Philip, and they embark on a friendship that is fraught with sexual desire. They cook together, drink together; Lola spends less time with her girlfriend.
Back in Greece, as Lola begins to flirt even more with Elena, the woman from the beach, it looks as if Philip is losing her, but as the film proceeds, cutting between the past and the present, it’s clear that he has lost her already.
Burunova doesn’t shy away from the trauma that sits towards the middle of her film. The scene is a tough watch and may provide more questions than answers. Fionn Whitehead is excellent in the difficult role as Philip, making him soberingly human, while as Elena, Zar Amir Ebrahimi is enigmatic, almost portraying a nemesis figure.
The story is similar to that of Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex, also taking place on a Greek island and both films end with a shot of their protagonists’ face fragmented in reflection: Tara’s face is replicated in the mirrors in a duty-free shop at the airport while Lola regards herself in the smashed door of the house where her neighbours fight. Walker’s film pumps with dance music, but Satisfaction features an elegant, breathtaking score by Midori Hirano.
BFI Flare runs from 18-29 March.
