February 20, 2018 |
For the latest chapter in their Women’s Tales series, the short-film initiative curated by female directors as a celebration of femininity in the 21st century, Miu Miu have handed the reins to Dakota Fanning, who last night premiered her directorial debut film, the fifteenth in the series, at London’s Curzon cinema. ‘Hello Apartment’ is a film of memory and personhood, a portrait of a young women’s life as seen through her new apartment. Only here, it is not an inanimate space, but a tabula rasa onto which our female protagonist projects her life – friendships, lovers, moods, all leave an indelible imprint, both physical and spiritual.
The spaces we inhabit are biographical, they tell stories and seal in memory, it’s a universal we can all relate to. Take my third year university house for example, where the large dent in the kitchen ceiling, the loose floorboards in the hall and the moss that grew behind the bathroom tap all told individual tales of silliness and squalor. This is Miu Miu though, and accordingly tells a far more glamorous tale of “reliving your past while going through what’s happening in your life now, in one space” according to the film’s writer Liz Hannah (co-writer of Spielberg’s latest, The Post). But what happens when we leave those spaces that have witnessed our most cherished memories and crushing lows? In her film, Dakota seems to suggest that they live on, visible to those who next call the space their own.
