Ricky D’Ambrose is known for his unique filmmaking style of evoking images from a childhood memory. His direction led to creating his feature film ‘The Cathedral’, making its world premiere at the 44th Annual Sundance Film Festival, which runs between January 20 to 30, 2022. It has been selected as part of the NEXT Innovator Award competition, a category that “recognizes the most innovative and forward-thinking film screened in the NEXT category”.
‘The Cathedral’ follows a character named Jesse Damrosch from his adolescent years to college over two decades of his life, showcasing his point-of-view growing up in an American family home. As each scene develops, the frame shows Jesse’s face staring at the camera as if to show his expression conveying his neutral self during his feelings of his family’s situations.
As the scenes develop, the characters of Jesse’s family members are introduced in a narrative voiceover which reveals the family politics that get in the way of what Jesse sees, from neglect, issues of trust, and deceit. Like in any family, in lies situations like divorce, martial problems, money issues, and neglect.
Think of this film style show like a biopic documentary, but it is fictional. The camera crew are there to shoot the footage to follow Jesse and his family’s life. There’s a voiceover narrative that helps describe various characters and scenes to help progress the story, but the camera allows the characters to immerse themselves into a dysfunctional family.
Many of the conversations feel very real and often randomly shot around Jesse’s life. This allows the audience to feel like they are a part of the family without being a part of the drama that unfolds. There is no music used in the film as each scene is carefully crafted with background sounds and the natural conversations of everyday lives. This really gives a sense of realism that audiences can relate to in being around with other family members and their complicated lives.
As the time passes by, scenes from news reports from the television to old Kodak commercials are shown as a way to set the timeline and current social and political views that the family was living in at that time. A lot of silent space is given in the everyday conversations to bring out the sense of the pessimism among the family interactions that contribute to the fallout and break-ups of each relationship.
The tone of this movie was pretty much set from the start, of the idea that negativity breeds further negativity to the lives of others. It all started in a kitchen scene where Jesse’s father Richard sits with Richard’s father, Dominic, for lunch and asks why his dad did not ever thank his mom. His simple response “why don’t you mind your own business”.
Following Richard’s life, we can see how much he retained from his own father Dominic and his demeanor, which he may not realize how much he became like him. Having to deal with family issues, accumulating debt from his business, and divorce, he also shares custody with taking care of Jesse. Many of the scenes show how out of touch Richard was becoming in terms of communication with his son Jesse. The constant neglect when Jesse is with his father Richard really shows that Richard is too invested in his own job and himself in fixing his own life.
The scenes shown between Jesse and Richard really encapsulates the impact on a child’s life growing up and witnessing the unhappiness aura he is exposed to with his father. Having no real reason shown that Jesse had any involvement in the family politics, remaining silent still ropes him into the negative space. Seeing Jesse’s face in multiple stages in his life showed how thick skinned he become by bottling up all the emotions within himself. His character never attempted to fight back in any way, and has taken a lot of figurative hits from multiple family members (especially Richard), which leaves the viewers wondering how would his character become when he enters adult life.
For those who have previously heard of the Academy Award winning film ‘Boyhood’, directed by Richard Linklater, ‘The Cathedral’ bears similarities in this coming-of-age drama and is recommended for viewers who like this style of film. Even if it was inspired by previous films, an emerging director like Ricky D’Ambrose took what he’s learned in filmmaking, and found ways to turn it into his own signature. ‘The Cathedral’ looks to be serious contender and no doubt will be making multiple rounds in the film festival circuit.