The Swan is set amongst the solid brick and pristine tarmac of a new housing development. As the story unfolds, buried superstitions start to simmer and the seeming timeless quiet of the suburbs feels as though it was only ever an illusion: like walking on deep still water, into which at any moment you might fall and drown.
I was drawn to Tessa Hadley’s The Swan because of its understated and mysterious tone, its relevant and timely subject matter and the way it quietly eludes to all kinds of suspicions without being explicit.
It is story that looks at a marriage where the woman “wants more freedom” and the man “has his suspicions”. It depicts a family struggling with the dichotomies of long-term coupledom: the yearning for intimacy Vs the desire for autonomy; the comfort and security of routine Vs its soul-deadening predictability; the pleasure of being deeply known Vs the strait-jacketed roles that such familiarity predicates. It is an un-love story which looks closely at the daily experiences of love, and at the true magic of it.
For me The Swan is a film about a woman’s desire for flight.
The strength of the story is in the diffracted lens that it places over this commonplace female rite of passage. We observe Suzie’s somewhat elusive journey through the rational eyes of her husband, David. In David I want to show a male character who is perceptive and cares deeply about his wife and family, but who does not know how to amend relations, or effect the change that may be needed.
I am interested in the idea that David’s unimaginative lack of action when he is faced with a problem actually becomes his strength and draws Suzie back to him. He is a good man who has to, however painfully, open himself up to things outside what he has rationally conceived as the sum of his life.
The Swan is a film about the mystery of ordinary lives, about secrets, about the things that are left unsaid. It is about the interpretation and misinterpretation of signs and in this way the film will work with subtlety, intriguing us with every line, every image, every nuance.