The fog of nostalgia: two films tackling trauma in the past

The Webster dictionary defines nostalgia as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to some past period or irrecoverable condition”. And in these pandemic-wrought times, it’s easy to see why so many of us might yearn for the blissful ignorance of the past. It’s a cliché that each generation believes the world was better ‘back in the day’, whether that be baby boomers hankering after their golden years, vintage enthusiasts wistfully believing they were born in the wrong era, or movie enthusiasts pronouncing streaming platforms like Netflix as the death of cinema.

The topic of nostalgia was a theme running across several films at the BFI London Film Festival in October. Two films, in particular, tackled the question of whether we’re blinded by the dream-like fog of a wishful longing for the past, and asked what happens when that veil is lifted. 

Edgar Wright’s latest film, Last Night in Soho (2021), had its UK premiere at the festival before going on general release this autumn. It’s the story of country girl Ellie (played by a wide-eyed Thomasin McKenzie) coming to terms with her overwhelming new surroundings at a London fashion college. Obsessed by the swinging 60s, she begins to have supernatural experiences that transport her back to 60s London, where she feels completely in her element.

She becomes enamoured with the life of her 60s counterpart – aspiring starlet Sandie, played by Anya Taylor-Joy. But as she’s immersed deeper into the ghostly dreams, she begins to realise that behind the blinding lights and swinging music, there’s a dangerous darkness threatening to envelop her in her waking life. Once the veil of wistful nostalgia is lifted, Ellie sees just how difficult the life of a young woman in the performing circuit of the 60s could be, especially one whose vulnerability is exploited by men. Wright’s film straps the audience in for a thrill ride through the dark underbelly of Soho, but the final message is clear: the past isn’t always as golden as it’s remembered to be.

Wright’s inspiration in giallo films of the late 1960s and 70s puts an additional angle on the smoke and mirrors theme of Last Night in Soho. Ancestors of the slasher genre, gialli are known for being hyper-stylised and for employing beautiful women as victims of horrendous murder. They teetered on the edge of exploitation with their gratuitous violence and sexual nature. Strip away the fashionable flashiness and gialli were often about the amount of women that could be massacred by increasingly bizarre and grotesque means.

In The Wolf Suit (2021), a documentary at the festival, filmmaker Sam Firth explores the question of whether – even within our individual pasts and lived experiences – we can ever be our own reliable narrator. Through immersive reconstructions and interviews, Firth seeks out the truth about her childhood and the relationship between her parents, which ended in a turbulent divorce. Her childhood memories are ones of happiness and laughter, whereas for her mother it was a time of aggression, gaslighting and abuse. 

Firth’s film is a detective’s board of pictures and red string, as each individual’s contribution is pieced together to find out the truth about that time, prising apart the memories that she seems to have developed as a reaction to trauma. As Firth told me: “The term nostalgia means longing for a home that often never existed, and I think that is how a lot of people relate to their childhood: as a place that has taken on magical qualities because it is just beyond memory. We are continually re-evaluating the past in relation to the present.” 

Our nostalgia for the past also plays into the way we perceive old movies, where classic status sometimes means having to look past contentious elements. Films such as Psycho (1960), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Forrest Gump (1994) are recognised as megaliths of cinema, yet in different ways all portray negative stereotypes relating to race, gender, mental illness or disabilities. Is our nostalgia for past cinema clouding our ability to criticise these films objectively? 

The Wolf Suit director doesn’t think so: “I don’t think this is about looking back at a film with rose-tinted glasses, but seeing something new in it through today’s eyes,” Frith says. “Tomorrow’s eyes could see something different too. Sometimes that tension becomes apparent on the first screening, even. Some people will have found Mickey Rooney’s [Japanese neighbour] character racist even when Breakfast at Tiffany’s was made. Just as people have already pointed out that the villain in the new Bond film has facial disfigurement and this [depiction] is really painful for those dealing with stigma.”

The theory that Firth presents in The Wolf Suit is that it’s necessary to reassess the past with modern ways of thinking, lest we end up excluding and forgetting the experiences of those who have suffered trauma such as gendered violence, racism and discrimination. But where does this leave classic films with very historic attitudes and problematic portrayals? 

Firth concludes: “We seem more than ever inclined to want to put things in boxes as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when it’s always more nuanced than this. We can watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Forrest Gump and Rain Man and recognise there are aspects of them that are wonderful, even if there are aspects that are deeply problematic.”

Last Night in Soho is currently in cinemas.

Acknowledging a damaging lack of diversity in film criticism, exacerbated by a lack of opportunities for emerging critics to gain experience and have meaningful engagement with publications, the BFI LFF Critics Mentorship programme returned for a fourth year at the festival, giving a meaningful experience and opportunity to a range of talented emerging film writers.

In the aftermath of last year’s global uprisings in protest at systemic racism and in support of Black Lives Matter, now more than ever there is a need for more tangible actions to be taken in response to racial inequality in the film industry. We are looking at how we can better serve not only Black writers but also writers from other underrepresented communities, by offering mentorship that can pave the way to future opportunities for paid work in the media.  

This year, we offered the BFI LFF Critics Mentorship programme to eight mentees, with guaranteed spaces for Black writers and writers who have a disability, impairment, learning difference or long-term condition. 

The mentees were invited to experience the BFI London Film Festival as an accredited press delegate with an intensive programme over the first six days of the festival. Journalist, commentator and founder of The British Blacklist, Akua Gyamfi and journalist, former Empire Magazine editor-in-chief and author Terri White were overall mentors to each of the participants who were also individually paired with a mentor from each media partner to support them and produce work. They also had the opportunity to pitch a festival comment piece or review for the BFI website.