So you broke up with someone and now they’ve got in touch to ask you if you’d like to go climbing with them, just like the two of you used to. One last hurrah, kind of thing, a farewell to all that. You decide to go, though it doesn’t seem like a very good idea.
Before anything else happens, Urszula Antoniak’s Magic Mountains, a brooding yet brief (only 81 minutes) exercise in mood management, has to explain why Hannah (Hannah Hoekstra) would accept this invitation from former boyfriend Lex (Thomas Ryckewaert) to go to the Tata mountains in Slovakia. Antoniak does it adroitly, in a scene which establishes the entire mood of the film. Nothing is said overtly but something in the sound design, the music, the guarded looks on the faces of Hannah and Lex and the dark interior of the bar where they meet to discuss the trip whispers danger. Maybe it was dangerous sex that kept these two together. Or maybe it’s real danger that’s in the wind and Hannah is gambling that accepting this invitation will be the best way to neutralise the faintly stalky Lex and ensure he’s out of her life for good. Give him what he wants and he’ll go away. All surmise.
And off they go, to Slovakia, where they first spend an evening with climbing guide Voytek (Marcin Dorocinski) and his self-effacing mother (Maria Maj), eating a homely meal and drinking peculiar local hooch. As the evening progresses Hannah keeps up the bright chatter, Lex broods and Voytek gradually reveals himself to be not just a self-sufficient man of the mountains but also educated and intelligent. He’s even read one of the series of novels Lex has written all about a character called Emily (who’s probably based on Hannah). Voytek doesn’t seem to think much of it. Maybe he’s making a play for Hannah. It’s a beautifully judged scene, with conviviality and threat alternating like AC current.
The next day the three of them set off on the climb, and into a different dynamic. Is Hannah now the meat in a macho sandwich? Is Lex going to be the problem or Voytek? Or both of them?
Antoniak keeps the options in play for as long as she can, alternating the glowering Lex and the silently assertive Voytek as potential aggressors and toying with the tropes of the horror movie, particularly in her representation of the two men. Hoekstra, for her part, never yields to the temptation to get into the final-girl T shirt, and leans away from horror – she leaves the boggly eyes to Ryckewaert – with a performance that’s naturalistic and plausible. It really helps that you can imagine all three of them on the crags, lean and reaching upwards for the next hold.
In horror movies the psychological and the actual are often in opposition to each other – is it really happening or is the victim imagining it? – but here they go hand in hand. The dangers might be imaginary, they might be physical, or both or neither.
Watching Antoniak put together her “and here’s what happens” final act is a bit like watching someone playing speed chess. At an incredible pace and in decisive strokes she brings up Mark Glynne’s sound design – which has been lurking from the outset – as Ethan Rose’s score shifts from the suggestive to the more obviously threatening. The landscape darkens, the mist rolls in, boulders tumble. A knife appears. A rope is cut.
For all these swift and bold developments and its stark and shocking conclusion this remains an understated film, perhaps too much so if you’re waiting for a speech at the end to contextualise and justify what’s been going on. It’s the first film I’ve seen by Antoniak and from her IMDb page it would appear that shortish films about single women up against it is her speciality. A new avenue to explore opens up. Climbing boots on.
Magic Mountains – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2023
