Harmony: The Five Frequencies Part 1 (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Harmony (Jessica Falkholt) was born with the ability to take away people's fear and darkness. As she struggles to survive homeless on the streets of an unforgiving city, a chance encounter with psychiatrist Beth (Jacqueline McKenzie) leads her to meeting Mason (Jerome Meyer), the first person Harmony didn't detect any fear within. It seems that these two have more connecting them than they realise, and as a dark storm approaches, they might be our only chance for salvation.

This marks Falkholt’s first feature film… and unfortunately her last, as she sadly passed away in January of this year. Considering how car crashes and near-death experiences play into a fair bit of the film’s plot, that ends up leaving a tragic aura around this production that is kind of difficult to look past. But getting past that real-world connection to tragedy, Falkholt here actually works quite nicely as someone with the weight of the world’s darkness resting on her shoulders and seeping into her skin. 

 

Opposite her, Meyer is… awkward. He is ‘Harmony Korine running into Tommy Wiseau in a narrow corridor and they keep stepping in front of each other’ levels of awkward. By all rationality, he should come across as a serial killer in waiting with how face-contorting his performance can get, but because of how well he plays the good-hearted loner alongside that, it comes across more cute than anything all that malicious. McKenzie as his mother, aside from being the linchpin for one of the film’s more confronting moments involving attempted suicide, it is quite refreshing to see that her serious talent at the acting craft has held true after all this time.

Then we have Eamon Farren and… okay, for context, last time we checked in with this guy, it was all the way back in 2014 with the abysmally painful Love Is Now. Since then, not only has he shown up in films like Winchester, he also landed a role in the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks; dude has clearly come leaps and bounds over the last four years, and this film is no exception. A performance of few words, the way he portrays himself as someone who is a little too familiar with his own darkness makes for a very intimidating presence on-screen, only heightened when he gets to really cut loose during the finale. Also, Tiriel Mora shows up, because he’s apparently under contract to be in every Aussie film ever. It is kind of insane how often I’ve come across this guy’s work by sheer circumstance of these reviews, from The Flip Side to My Pet Dinosaur, but credit to him for his hustle. That, and his role as a street bum leaves a weirdly lingering impression.

Well, this has to be one of the murkiest films I’ve seen in a while, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. The cinematography by Brendan Gribble keeps everything in this sewer-green tinge, similar to some of the later Saw films, and the images captured through that of the homeless-strewn back alleys of this nameless city are rather haunting. Add to that Tai Rotem’s atmospheric and wavy compositions, and you have a film that seems determined to portray a city that is in the midst of a dark storm… which, again, is both literal and figurative. As for the actual details of the plot, for a film that wants to show the real fear that the people are in the grips of, it certainly doesn’t hold back on the grim imagery. Whether it’s the tragedies that happen to people, like car accidents or miscarriages, or the tragedies that they do to others, like the POV shots we get of assaults and murders, this is a rare instance where the unpleasant film stock actually feels warranted when it’s used to show this amount of human misery.

As is probably obvious from the film’s title, this is attempting to be the first part of a larger saga. Even though we have officially reached Peak Hunger Games, this feels more in-line with Goblet Of Fire-era Harry Potter: The magical story about a chosen hero coming to terms with how much death and tragedy exists in their world. With this film being an original concept from writer/director Corey Pearson, and not based on a pre-existing source, I would say that this film’s level of ambition is a bit short-sighted. I mean, just looking at the title makes me think of seeing someone explain that they caught a fish this big.

However, while I joke about the jumbled mess of a name this has, it still does a decent job of setting up its own universe. It spends its time more focused on the urban part of its setting, showing how the magical powers of the leads affect everyday people, but the way it establishes the lore behind those powers is decent. Admittedly, it involves the kind of absolutist wish-wash that might cause some Wrinkle In Time flashbacks, but it still handles the idea of a ‘Fear or Love’ dichotomy sensibly enough. It gives enough background that it feels like there’s something bigger waiting around the corner… but not so much that the film trips over itself foreshadowing all the apparently exciting stuff it has in store for later on. Even films that actually have more to come later on have struggled with this, so it’s a good sign that Pearson knows what he’s doing.

Honestly though, more so than anything to do with star formations or coincidental births or even stopping some vague dark force, the big thing that I liked about this? It basically turns the titular Harmony into a superhero; one whose power isn’t super-strength or flight or control of the elements, but empathy. The ability to see another person’s pain and take it from them, bearing their burden and taking the weight off of them. Quite honestly, this is one of the more poignant depictions of empathy I’ve seen in a film, and it’s not because it shows empathy as this entirely holistic skill; it also delves into the downside of it as well.

Harmony’s powers are shown that, while she can take a person’s ‘Fear’ away from them and alleviate their pain, it means that she has to bear that pain herself. In fact, if she bears too much of it, it could even kill her. After each encounter, she has to wash it away (literally, in a plot point that is at once corny and a lead-in to some rather strong visuals), lest it fester inside her. This honestly feels true to what it’s like being that shoulder for someone else to lean on. Yeah, it means that they are feeling better, but taking on someone else’s pain as your own is far from a pleasant experience. And it isn’t one that is dealt with easily on one’s own; just like someone else needs your shoulder, you might need the shoulder of another to deal with what you’ve absorbed.

As someone who has what feels like overactive empathy, where I find myself sympathising with people that I can’t even tell if they’re worth feeling sorry for, this feels true to something that I rarely see discussed on either side of the screen. As awkward as Mason’s initial scenes are, the relationship built between him and Harmony works beyond anything to do with what stars aligned for them to be born. They feel like opposite sides of that empathy, and the way they help each other confront the darkness in the world… well… it looks like love to me.

All in all, this is a breath of fresh, if somewhat tar-filled, air after sitting through one too many weak Australian productions this year. The acting is either solid or just takes some time to grow on the audience, the production values and story make for that rare young-adult story that feels like it deserves to be this washed-out and dreary, and the way the writing delves into areas of human misery and the empathy needed to survive it wins a lot of points with me in how true it feels underneath all that pseudo-New Age flair. With Falkholt no longer being with us, and this feeling like a film that counted its chickens before they hatched, I honestly don’t know if we will see another instalment of the Five Frequencies saga. But if Pearson does make another one of these… well, he’s already got my ticket.