Breaching Bounds THE CONFRONTING BODY IN MIRANDA NATION’S UNDERTOW

Films are surrounded by invisible walls. They’re the categorisations, the genres, the ratings; they exist to keep things orderly and to help shape audience expectations. The walls help us know what is contained within, to compare and contrast with other filmic cities we’ve visited before. These barriers have value, sure – but then are they too constricting? And with films being an extension of society itself, is the existence of filmic barriers stifling growth, stifling art?

Undertow (2018), written and directed by Miranda Nation, tells the story of Claire (Laura Gordon), a married woman who has recently had a late-term miscarriage. The film takes pains to ensure that we, as viewers, experience this trial alongside her: in a key scene, we see her naked, heavily pregnant body lowering itself into a bath, then the water turning red with blood. The fallout from this event plays out quietly: we are shown what the pregnancy has done to her body, the impact it has on her relationship with her loving but perhaps overly protective husband, Dan (Rob Collins), and, most significantly, how it eventually drives her interactions with Angie (Olivia DeJonge), a younger woman who comes into her life at her most vulnerable moment.

‘I REALLY WANTED TO—MIRANDA NATION