Casey Walker’s Home Bodies, premiering at the Fantasia Film Festival, is an engrossing, fascinating, and visually stunning conversation about what makes us human, held aloft by the utterly compelling performances of Emma and Ian Ho.
What makes us human? Most people would agree it’s a mix of our creativity, self-determination, our communication abilities and emotional and cognitive complexity. It’s our ability to think outside the box, challenge, and navigate the unknown, both intellectually and physically.
However, what if you had been born into a controlled, locked box where everything was dictated by an unknown force, your whole childhood spent there unaware of anything outside of the walls you call home? Would those attributes that make us all human still emerge as you entered your teens? Would the need for self-determination lead you to break free from the box? Or would fear of the unknown keep you there? Casey Walker’s fascinating and creative science fiction thriller, Home Bodies, asks just that, as we meet early teen siblings Red (Emma Ho) and Blue (Ian Ho) in the only home they’ve ever known, a home controlled by an unseen force called Papa.
Papa talks to Red and Blue from behind a locked door, his voice electronic in nature, as if each sentence has been pre-planned and sewn together to answer the questions our institutionalised teens might wish to pose. It’s not the only locked door Red and Blue are aware of, but why worry? If a door is locked, it’s clearly because Papa wishes to keep them safe.
Papa oversees every second of every day, from the three meals a day Red and Blue must always eat, to the VHS tapes that arrive each morning with endlessly repeated episodes of an Edenic farm story told by puppets – a story that Red and Blue have based their whole lives on, from bedspreads to walkie-talkies adorned with their favourite character’s image. Papa controls when it’s dawn and dusk, deals with their garbage, washes their clothes and fills their fridge when it’s empty, all unseen, all just magically completed as each day rolls on.
Like the farm they watch on grainy VHS tapes, Blue and Red’s world is a controlled fantasy, but that is all about to change as Noël celebrations arrive without warning. Excited by the presents (all of which are farm toys aimed at toddlers, not teenagers), Red and Blue hurriedly unwrap everything under the giant tree that appeared during their sleep. But their smiles and joy are quickly replaced by fear as they spot something – or is it someone standing behind the tree. Red and Blue scream, running to Papa’s door for answers, only to be told that they have been given a ‘Pal’ (Ess Hödlmoser) that they must care for, because they are now of age. But what is this alien ‘Pal’ and why doesn’t it speak? And even more concerning for Blue, why does it seem intent on driving a wedge between him and Red?
Pal is about to set free some of the more challenging emotions in Blue and Red: jealousy, fear, anger and uncertainty, as a psychological experiment neither sibling knew they were a part of reaches its climax.
Written by Adrian Murray and Marcus Sullivan, Home Bodies could be best described as a chilling, eerie yet utterly enthralling coming-of-age science fiction movie. Yet this is also a film that rejects simple labels as it delves not only into the emotionally transformational nature of adolescence but also into broader themes of subjugation versus freedom, and fear versus courage. Blue and Red’s odd Christmas gift isn’t really Pal at all; it’s the arrival of a series of choices that Pal brings, choices that will either divide, unite or destroy them. Pal is a serpent in human clothes slithering through a constructed prison masquerading as a Garden of Eden, one who will, whether Red and Blue like it or not, usher in the human disobedience, rebellion, and conformity that make us unique.
Walker’s film is an engrossing, fascinating and visually stunning conversation about what makes us human, held aloft by the utterly compelling performances of Emma and Ian Ho. These two young actors carry the entire movie, which is no easy feat, for a film so rich in complex behavioural, emotional and psychological discussions. Add the sumptuous art deco meets mid-century modern set design, lighting and sound that immerses us in Red and Blue’s world as their Edenic world crumbles and a finale that opens up a universe of possibilities, and Home Bodies becomes one of the most inventive, unique and enthralling science fiction films of the year.
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