THOU WAST MILD LOVELY

When Akin (Joe Swanberg) arrives at the farm, he finds his job. This is what he expected to find. When Sarah (Sophie Traub) opens her legs, she finds someone watching. This is what she expected to find. When Jeremiah opens his mouth, frightening things come out of it. This has come to be expected. But what happens by the creek next to the cow -- this was not expected.

Director Josephine Decker’s highly-acclaimed second feature unfolds with the lyricism and inexorable sense of tragedy of an ancient Appalachian murder ballad. Indie icon Joe Swanberg (director of HAPPY CHRISTMAS and DRINKING BUDDIES) delivers a beautifully understated performance as Akin, a soft-spoken farmworker who takes a summer job working for the belligerent, domineering Jeremiah (Robert Longstreet), who lives in incestuous isolation with his daughter.

Sophie Traub’s performance as the daughter, Sarah, has the sun-dappled quality of one of Andrew Wyeth’s Helga paintings: hers is a completely innocent and destructive sexuality, overripe to the point of bursting. Decker’s vision of Paradise Lost – dew clinging to a spider’s web, the insistent hum of insects, a young girl writhing on the grass – is unforgettably poetic and erotic, and seems to echo down from ages past. “I finally felt the deep liberation of putting something into the world that represented my darkest self” – Josephine Decker.

“The unholy marriage of Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch” – Indiewire

"The most original independent filmmaker to surface in the past few years is Josephine Decker" – The New Yorker

THE NEW YORKER - #2 Best Films of 2014
TINY MIX TAPES - #9 Top 30 Films of 2014