First I want to bring awareness to the fact that the writer and director to this film is indeed a black man. His name is Remi Weekes. He has four credited works on IMDb but this is actually his first big film since
His House is on Netflix for a universal audience. It's always great to see black creators, and forming a personal opinion, black inventors in our favorite genre. Some interviews of his and reviews from critics label this as a balance between horror/drama. I totally see the mixture because even though the film had it's scary
moments; personally, I felt sad
rather than scared. The themes to this movie is pretty clear to me on my first watch and I'm glad that reiews and Weekes himself confirm my ideas. This film is about trauma, assimilation, guilt, and personally I think other various mental illness (I guess centered around tramua though). All themes sort of interlap with one another and if can't seculude one without breaking the web this film provides.
Of course, the obvious aspect of trauma is about the war that Bol and Rial endured. Going from seeing your people slaughtered and having shootouts on a daily basis to going on boats and seeing people drown to being captured by a bunch of white people and put into an asylum would put 99.999 percent of people off the deep end. Bol hides the emotions weighing on his brain with the stoic attitude that most men do in these situations where it's obvious Rial is being hit hard. Then add the guilt that both feel about their "daughter", you're expecting an internal disaster for the person vs the mind. Kidnapping a little girl and then she dies in your hands is not something that you can just subconsciously ignore in your everyday mundane life. They faced their demons in the film and won the battle but it doesn't mean they won the war. Their experiences is something that will randomly slip into their minds at most random times for no reason just like shyt that we did in the past slips into ours. Another aspect of guilt in this film is obviously survivors guilt. All of their people are dead yet somehow by a small miracle they have a house paid by officials in London. That's a lot of shyt that only a strong mind can survive.
The assimilation aspect is something I first noticed. The scene transition from Bol burning all their items to him going to the mall to buy clothes that white people on the walls are wearing says it all.
. Bol is trying to be all in while Rial is still trying to live the life she previously knew and that there alone is a conflict for the two protagonists in the film. The white people in the film also don't help.
They're giving off that we gave you a house now act like how we want you to act vibe
.
As for the mental health topic, besides the trauma, sitting in the house all day every day with nothing to do is another issue. Rial sitting in the house all day with no one to talk to while Bol is out exploring leaves you with the idea of course she's going to start have some demon inside the house talk to her. I feel like that issue is relevant now to all the people who have to stay in the house everyday 24/7 due to the rona.
Overall, enjoyable film. I actually liked the drama aspect more than the horror side in this film. It kind of got me out of my thick skin and put me into my feels.