Breathing In
A review by Jeremiah Kipp

streaming now on Screambox

Breathing In



A slow burn of minimalist period film art horror, Breathing In largely traps the viewer in a dark, dingy hut within war ravaged South Africa at the dawn of the 20th century. But it might as well be set on a post apocalyptic heath. An old general (Lionel Newton) is bed-ridden, seemingly about to die, tended to by grim Anna (Michele Burgers) and innocent beauty Annie (Jamie Lee-Money), who rove around the candlelit space whispering to each other in ominous anticipation.

Based on a play by Reza de Wet, we never quite lose the feeling of this being adapted from a different medium, and director Jaco Bouwer works overtime to make Breathing In a cinematic experience, frequently cutting away to magic hour landscapes, slow motion shots of silhouetted figures gazing into fire pits, close-ups of feet marching through the nighttime mud and rain, an expressionistic piano on fire, anything to break the sense that this material is locked down and stagebound.

With a candlelit set that feels more like impeccable production design than a lived-in wartime hovel, there’s an artifice fairy tale quality to the proceedings. We’re well outside the bounds of social realism, into the expressionistic and the absurd. After a drawn out opening sequence where Anna ritualistically prepares Anna’s long hair and corseted dress for a visitor, a bruised and bloody young soldier (Sven Ruygrok) knocks at the door to see the general, but clearly the women have a different agenda in mind.

While the tone of claustrophobic dread is immersive, we’re primed to expect the whole thing to move slow and stately, dark and solemn. Every shot, fastidiously photographed by director of photography Jorrie van der Walt, is Baroque. The performances tense and heavy. If you’re expecting a sense of urgency, you’re crashing the wrong party. Breathing In makes the pacing of A24 releases like The Witch and The Lighthouse (both of which were some of my favorite genre films of recent years) feel like a brisk sprint.

Is it even a horror film? That largely depends on whether you think Anna is a witch, or there’s a sense of supernatural fate at work here, or possession, or revenge. Since the endgame is obscured for so much of the running time, the lingering question of Breathing In is whether the answer to the film’s lingering riddles will be worth it. Its more Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring than Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, but eventually the sense of danger increases. Not everyone is making it out alive. But even those who don’t make it are frogs in slowly boiling water. At one point the soldier holds his head as the room starts to buzz, and he murmurs, “Will the night ever end?” And it’s tough to disagree when he’s so clearly the figure the audience is meant to identify with.



Jeremiah Kipp is a film director based in New York. He has written for Fangoria, Shock Cinema, Filmmaker Magazine and Slant Magazine.