Fugue Film Difficulty Ranking: 3
If you time traveled back to the life you were living 2 years ago, would you be happy with your former self or do things differently? In Fugue, Alicja returns to her estranged family after losing her memory 2 years before. She’s repulsed by her bougie family, friends, and former life as a devoted mother.
From: Poland, Europe
Watch: Trailer, Buy on Amazon
Next: Memento, Thelma, Paris, Texas
Why Watch Fugue?
- If you like creepy, cold mystery films – the blue/grey cinematography and soundtrack brilliantly create this cold world.
- To see a really awkward family reunion.
- Experience the confusion amnesia.
- Question the role of women in modern society.
The Breakdown
Fugue starts with a creepy animation sequence before it switches to live-action. It’s creepy because of the music (and the centipede). All you can hear is a few irregular strings of a violin, similar to the shrill string notes you hear in the murder sequences in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho that helped to establish the creepiness of stringed instruments in film. The music immediately sets the tone of the film. As a result, we expect to be scared, spooked, or disorientated in the rest of the film.
So when the next scene shows a woman slowly walking along train tracks in the dark, we’re ready to be spooked. From the way that she half stumbles along the tracks, we know that something isn’t quite right. We can’t see her face, as the sequence is shot with the camera following her from behind, but we feel like something is wrong with her appearance as no one on the train platform helps her up from the tracks or even looks at her for more than a glance.
Once she’s up on the platform she continues to half stumble around. We get a first glimpse of her face, which looks like she’s drunk or full of hate for all of the looks she’s getting from the people around her. As if in reaction, she picks a spot, squats, and pisses on the concrete platform causing the people around her to run away in disgust. It’s her way of saying: f**k you. It’s a provocative opening, similar to the opening of Carlos Reygadas’ Battle in Heaven. It’s designed to make the audience immediately judge the woman (Alicja) before we have a chance to get to know her.
Two years later the same woman is being examined at a clinic. Her hair is now dark and disheveled and she carries a face full of contempt. The doctor asks her if she has a husband or children and then if she has a job (the order of his questions is no coincidence – it shows what society expects of her) but she doesn’t answer as she can’t remember anything. So the authorities throw her onto a ‘Lost and Found’ TV show to see if anyone recognizes her. On the show, they quickly receive a call from an emotional man claiming to be her father. As he reveals the woman’s background, she sits there in confusion, her gaze only breaking into a smirk briefly (some hint of recognition of what she’s done/become?) before returning to the void. What has happened to her?
The Role of Women in society
Without a memory or background, Alicja returns to her family as a blank state. She doesn’t know who they are or who she was, but she quickly finds out that she’s not welcome anymore. As a short haired, leopard print wearing homeless woman she doesn’t fit into their middle class world sheltered from the victims of society. She used to have long blond hair, a job as a school teacher, and a husband and son – the perfect Polish woman.
Now her former self seems to repulse her. She lived a middle class bougie life with friends and family that only cared for people like them. The middle class life appears to be a former prison from which she managed to escape. Her whole life was set up to become a part of another man’s rather than to be lived for herself. She sees this in her old school-friend that quickly assumed her former position in her husband’s home as the mother to her child. There’s no place for a mother that looks like a hooker here.
What to Watch Next
Whilst the storytelling peters out towards the end, the tone of Fugue is brilliant. Through the sounds, colours, and expressions on the face of Alicja the director creates a cold, often creepy world. If you noticed and loved the feel of Fugue I recommend watching Thelma, a creepy Norwegian take on Stephen King’s Carrie.
Or if you’re looking for a film with a brighter feel than Fugue but with similar subject matter, check out Volver by Pedro Almodovar. His films are usually tonally bright – vivid colours and characters which create warmth – but dark in subject matter and always brilliantly put together.
If you want to watch more films featuring amnesiacs check out Memento, The Majestic, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Or if you simply want to watch more films in which lost characters try to piece back their life/family then check out Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas.
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