Glasshouse, playing at Fantasia, asks us to consider the long-term effects of an insular, locked-down existence if it became the norm due to climate change, a pandemic, or a disaster.
Over the past year, there has been no shortage of pandemic-themed films, from the interesting but flawed Songbird to the dire Final Days and the divisive Tyger Tyger. Many of these pandemic dramas, thrillers, and horrors have struggled to explore the psychological effects of a pandemic, opting for tried-and-tested clichés that avoid exploring the human experience in all its complexity. Thankfully, Kelsey Egan’s new movie Glasshouse places that human experience centre stage with an unsettling and fascinating tale of isolation, survival and desire.
Egan’s film explores our human ability to redefine and redraw concepts of family, place, and morality as we lock down and hide from everything around us. Here, a simple glasshouse is a Noah’s Ark, where the rules that bind a family are subject to change in a fight for survival at any cost.
Egan’s film owes much to 1970s folk horror as the past haunts the present, and memories entwine to create ever-evolving mythologies. Each character in Egan’s world is trapped between reality, fantasy, freedom, and control, and their choices, desires, and emotions are held captive in a serene yet horrifying Garden of Eden, nestled among the trees known only as the Glasshouse.
Within this glass fortress, an ageing mother (Adrienne Pearce) cares for her family, protecting them from the infected invaders who seek to bathe in the serenity of the grounds. Her older girls, Bea (Jessica Alexander) and Evie (Anja Taljaard), care for the younger Daisy (Kitty Harris) and the cognitively impaired Gabe (Brent Vermeulen) while the glasshouse and its ground feed, water, and nurture them. The glasshouse protects them from a memory-wiping virus still circulating in the air; it is an ark that must be protected from those who may seek its security at all costs.
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As two worlds collide, one built on isolation, rules and safety, and the other desire and freedom, innocence, violence, and survival surround the glasshouse, and the arrival of an injured visitor strips away its deadly secrets.
Egan’s film talks directly about our shared pandemic experience, where time seems to slow and speed up simultaneously, with our days flying past yet resoundingly empty of notable new experiences. Glasshouse asks us to consider the long-term effects of this insular existence if it became the norm due to climate change, a pandemic, or a disaster. How would our view of the world change? Would we develop and live in separate realities? Would our base animalistic desires and behaviours be amplified or subdued?
The Glasshouse may appear to offer sanctuary and security, but this Garden of Eden is built on blood, its beauty a mere mirage for the rotting roots that gave it creation.
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