Bright Star

The film stitches together world and wonder, the sharp needle and rough thread that yield the clothing worn on the body melding with the ethereal words of a poet. The film is a tribute to the powerful tension between the two, between materiality and mystery, soul and body, practicality and poetry, even life and death, and of course, between male and female.

Acutely aware of the inherent power of the raw image, and trusting in the material prior to its contextualisation, Campion artistically reveals the importance of sensation in the “unadorned image”… Campion’s directorial approach when filming Bright Star, her responsiveness to that which is becoming and attuned to changing sensations in the creative process, invited a dialogue with the spectator and “reality” that echoes André Bazin’s conception of the “world in its own image”.

Both young lovers speak and move freely through the charmed time they spend together. BRIGHT STAR’s world and language are plausible, but more than that they are intoxicating. When the final letter inevitably arrives, Fanny’s loud, desolate sobs shake you awake and give you a real moment of grief.