FOGBOUND
Netherlands/UK, 2001, 99 minutes, Colour.
Luke Perry, Ben Daniels, Orla Brady, Jeroen Krabbe.
Directed by Ate de Jong.
Fogbound, as the title suggests, is an eerie drama. Three friends are driving in the mountains and the fog comes down. They start to tell each other stories – which reveal a great deal about each other, reveal secrets, lead to violence and death.
The film was written and directed by Ate de Jong, a Dutch director who also had some time in Hollywood with Miami Vice and two feature films, Drop Dead Fred and Highway to Hell. The cast is mixed: American Luke Perry, British Ben Daniels, Irish Orla Brady, Dutch Jeroen Krabbe.
As with the weather and the fog, the drama becomes turgid at times – but is an attempt to explore psychological interactions in a crisis situation.
1. The impact of the film as drama, fantasy, moral allegory?
2. The title: and its physical reality, psychological, moral?
3. The mountain setting, the anonymous country, the roads, the peaks and cliffs, the echoes? Night, the dense fog, absence of sight and sound? The flashbacks, the city, the 18th century, Japan? The musical score?
4. The theme of fog, the physical reality, stopping the journey, individuals able to be lost, lack of sense of direction, calling out, people playing tricks on one another? Fog finally clearing? The psychological dimensions, not seeing, lost and directionless? The same with the moral reality of fog, the need for some kind of search, resolution?
5. The film as a three-hander, the international cast? Their interactions, developing individuality? The stories of their past, coping with the present? The tangled relationships, marriage, love, commitment, sexuality, violence? Issues of separation? Of children? Confiding in each other, betrayal?
6. The three in the past, Bob and Leo as being friends, Leo and Anne and their marriage? Drawing on their past as they cope with the fog? The flashbacks for Leo and Anne, for Bob and Leo, the parties, Japan, the Japanese executive and sexuality? The flashback for Leo, his fantasy from the 18th century, the birth of the twins, his decree of separation, the children growing up, the formality in his household for the little girl, no education for the boy, the reaction of the servants? The revolution, the boy supporting Leo, the girl turning against him? His theories not being borne out?
7. The initial teasing and games, psychological games, the effect on each one of them in the fog, wanting to declare themselves, resolution?
8. Each of them learning, changing? Anne and the issue of children, wanting Leo's help concerning the divorce? Leo and his inability for commitment? His death? The truth, sex, Anne and the rape, Leo forcing her to have an abortion, her being childless? Bob and Anne and their sexual encounter?
9. Basic human issues, birth, life, relationships - and death?
