I am currently writing the music for the forthcoming feature film Passing Through.
Passing Through is the debut feature by writer-director David Walter Hall, produced by PY Films. Filmed in the French town of Agde in summer 2019.
Featuring Mark Little, Angela Koo, Sam Baker-Jones and Lily Lesser. I also make a brief appearance, busking.
Synopsis
When Tom and Iona?s idyllic life is interrupted by his estranged son and girlfriend, their idealistic fantasies are threatened as their personal histories unravel.
The Story
Tom and Iona have invented an idyllic paradise for themselves in the South of France. After deciding to live together on a whim, things appear to be going well. That is until an unexpected houseguest arrives at Tom?s front door ? his estranged son, Matthew, along with his empathetic French girlfriend, Adele. Tom, excited by the opportunity to reconnect with his son invites them to stay. They agree, with just a little apprehension.
As Matthew and Adele settle in, Iona prepares a dinner. During so, Adele reveals her peculiar childhood, in which she grew up in a quasi-cult with parents who believed she was some kind of deity, until she abruptly ran away at 15. Surprised, but not shaken, Tom and Iona are casually concerned by Adele?s dramatic disclosure. However, it soon becomes clear that Adele?s emotionally tumultuous past is not quite finished with her.
As the days pass and the characters? emotional histories begins to unravel, Iona forms a cautious bond with Adele, and in a moment of vulnerability caused by Tom?s preoccupation with connecting with his son, Iona regretfully reveals hidden aspects of her and Tom?s relationship.
Soon, Matthew?s pent-up feelings towards his father reach a boiling point when Matthew drunkenly confronts him about the affair he had towards the end of his marriage.
As the fine line between resentment and love for his father narrows, Matthew takes time away from his father to go into town with Adele on a curious mission to procure drugs from some locals. After seeming to help save the grandmother of the drug dealer, the old woman?s son invites Adele to a street party out of gratitude ? but the experience rattles Adele into the start of an emotional regression.
At the street party, with tensions high, Tom and Matthew engage in an entirely novel experience: a cathartic dance-off encapsulating their mutual competitiveness, capacity for joy, and long forgotten appreciation to have each other in their lives. But this newfound excitement is cut short for Matthew when he takes Adele to a scenic hillside to experience another novel experience: sex.
After an awkward and unfulfilling experience, Adele breaks down and reveals that her past abuse was not only emotional, but that she was repeatedly raped by her father as a child.
The next day on an excursion out to sea, everyone?s plans are cut short when a fight breaks out between Iona and Ad?le. Iona can no longer stand Adele?s hopelessly damaged, and to her, overly dramatic attitude. Angry, depressed and questioning everything, Iona retreats from her crumbling paradise and goes to a hotel, causing Adele, racked with guilt and still in shock, to hitch a ride to Paris. All Matthew can do is beg Adele to stay, but there is no changing her mind.
Father and son, now alone together, are compelled to reckon with their unresolved feelings toward each other. Over dinner, in a moment of understanding and truthful recognition of the past, the two come to suspect that it may have been Matthew?s mother, not Tom, who was responsible for the breakdown of their family. But the following morning, Matthew must set off to start life anew.
Now completely alone, Tom runs into Iona. But can he convince her to give the idyllic paradise he crafted a second chance?
Or better yet, can Tom separate his idealism from reality, and see Iona as more than just a feature of the beautiful landscape that surrounds him?
