Home Education - Festival Review

To use the words slowburn and high-octane in the same sentence may seem like a clashing analogy, but this is the only way to describe Home Education. The film is akin to a minefield, where unsteady, drawn out steps are taken to ensure atmosphere is built, and then 'boom!', the story unleashes a sharp sting of powerful, horror-filled energy. This extremely calculated storytelling is a method that director Andrea Niada employs throughout, ensuring that the experience of Home Education is not to be forgotten. 

Home Education details the journey of Rachel (Lydia Page), a young teenager who is in complete isolation in the remote countryside of Southern Italy with her parents, Carol (Julia Ormond) and Phillip (Salvatore De Santis). Rachel's exile from the outside world sees her live by her parents' strict doctrine, homeschooled and detached from reality. Everything from general knowledge to life skills are taught with a paranoid and delusional ruling, with her parents living by the notion that powers and otherworldly forces exist. This fallacy will become all the more dangerous when the patriarch of the family dies, leaving Carol convinced that her husband would rise again, leading to brutal discoveries and precarious truths illuminating the darkness within the family home.

Bar the fantastic storyline and everything that becomes unleashed at the hands of a potent narrative, what truly stands out within Home Education is the aesthetics, aura and ambience. The film is steeped in this strange darkness that is so unfamiliar, yet enchanting in its alienness. We are all mostly familiar with forestry and remote woodlands, but not in the fantastical manner that Niada washes the film with. It's like a dark fairytale, a film where the visual language of the isolated, woodsy setting combined with the symbolism and overt horror of the situation infuses in a melting pot of pure darkness. Home Education takes this Grimm's-Fairy-Tale-like concoction and creates a symphony of visceral melancholy peppered with scenes of familial trauma bonds, and power dynamics.

Seconding the allure of Home Education is how the film takes the viewer on a whirlwind journey of doubt, where we are torn between reality and the worldview that Rachel and her clan follow. Are their beliefs a case of cult charades? Or is there something deeper looming underneath the surface? The exploration of distorted psyches is exemplified on account of the excellent performances. Lydia Page leads as the complex Rachel, whose journey from innocent and obedient to questioning her entire identity and experiences is spearheaded with pure, genuine talent from the young actress. Every scene is played with an air of mastery, as if Page and Rachel were one being. Adding to this is Julia Ormond, whose extensive career has seen her star in 'Legends of the Fall' (1994), 'Sabrina' (1995), 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (2008), 'Witches of East End' (2013-14) and 'The Walking Dead: World Beyond' (2020-21). Throughout, Ormond's brilliant portrayal of the terrifying Carol is certainly a performance that is not to be missed. 

Home Education also toys with a horror-coded coming-of-age allegory, where Rachel's navigation of the cruel world instigated by her parents leads her on a path of transgressive transformation. As such, the film initiates a probing into quite intense thematics, notably, how Rachel interacts with the external environment outside of her homeschooled existence. Similarly arising from the depths of Home Education is the notion of cult mentalities, what it means to be stripped/denied a form of self-existence and knowledge, opting instead to control and force-feed a narrative drenched in fear and isolation. Here, the film takes whispers from the likes of 'Dogtooth' (2009) and 'The Other Lamb' (2018), where matters of control are revealed through a horrifically powerful lens. 

As Home Education begins, a quote from Rachel's father is announced - "Two things in life are sure, inseparably entwined: The mind reflects the world, and the world reflects the mind". This perfectly describes the film. Home Education exposes the power that evolves in a world where ethereal otherness is possible, and how reality can be a malleable experience, determined by horrifying perceptions. 

The mystifying Home Education has its UK premiere with an exclusive Q&A at this year's Dead Northern Film Festival on Saturday, 27th September at 15:30. 

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