Somewhere Down the Line (2014)

Somewhere Down the Line from Julien Regnard on Vimeo.

Somewhere Down the Line (2014) is a film by Julien Regnard that thematically recalls Old Fangs (2009), an earlier Cartoon Saloon short directed by Adrien Meirgeau and Alan Holly, in its exploration of coming of age, family turmoil and estranged relations, but with a more optimistic outcome. Like Old Fangs, which tracked an anthropomorphic wolf's trek into the deep dark woods of repressed childhood angst in an attempt to be reconciled with his bestial father, Somewhere Down the Line uses the visual metaphor of the journey to convey the emotional distance created between two soul pulled down different courses in life. Here, a man's progression from childhood to old age is represented as a literal car journey, the various relationships he forges and breaks within that time being illustrated in the succession of passengers he picks up and abandons along the way. There is no sense of destination to the journey; for the most part, its purpose is simply to move away from situations that have turned either sour or stale, to leave the past behind and venture out into the unknown in the hopes that something better lies ahead. Crucially, the protagonist's journey is entirely one-way; from the moment he ditches his quarrelsome parents he becomes a man perpetually on the run, learning how to abandon loved ones and never look back, until finally he winds up on the receiving end of that very abandonment.

Somewhere Down the Line contains little discernible dialogue, relying strongly on mood and atmosphere to convey the inner condition of its characters. It does so in a manner that underscores both the beauty of the surrounding landscapes and the quiet desolation of the journey. The road the protagonist travels is shown to be endless and largely uneventful, with long stretches in which we see nary a sign of other vehicles or human life. There is an apprehensiveness to the journey, a sense that one is driven to form attachments to fellow travelers simply to stave off that overwhelming isolation. Like Old Fangs, Somewhere Down the Line makes eye-catching use of colour and lighting to characterise the various stages of the journey and how this translates into personal progression (or regression) in the character's lifespan. The film is structured around an obvious symbolism involving the cycle of the seasons, signalling not only the temporal stages of the protagonist's life but also his emotional development in terms of his ability to connect with others. We open in the cold dead of winter, where the toxic relations between the protagonist's parents and his own entrapment as a helpless spectator to their non-stop quarreling are reflected in the thick layer of snow that has engulfed the surrounding countryside. Once the protagonist, still a young child, has seized the initiative to take control of the car and go his own way, the bleak grey of the skies gives way to a warmer, gentler glow. In learning not to be emotionally reliant on his parents, he enjoys the promise of freedom ahead, yet the persistent snow and ice suggest that his hurting and general reluctance to let others get close has persisted into adolescence/adulthood. It is only once he has pulled over and offered help to a group of young travelers whose own vehicle has broken down that we clear signs of this frigid atmosphere shifting; as he finds himself in the company of others and is implied to form a particularly strong bond with the mustached young man who takes the passenger seat beside him, the snow around him finally thaws. When this friendship is subsequently traded in for the promise of a romantic relationship with a young woman whose vehicle is out of commission, the green spring ambience continues to flourish; while it came at the cost of betraying his buddy and leaving him stranded, the protagonist's life has never been more alive with hope and the possibility of renewal. In both cases, the forging of a new bond, the emotional dependency upon another individual, offers promise but does not come without its degree of risk, as signified in the dark passage the protagonist takes through a forest once his new friends have joined the ride and, more saliently, the overturned car he later passes with his newfound love. The obvious pitfall is that the fresh hope birthed from their youthful union will one day give way to the same bitterness and anger that came to define his parents' relationship; for now, though, the young couple are at the peak of their passion, heading into a tunnel and emerging with a child in the backseat (could there be a clearer metaphor?) into the warm embrace of a bright, brilliant summer.

There is trouble ahead, however, for very soon the skies are darkening yet again and autumn sets in with the relationship between the protagonist and his partner beginning to mirror that of his parents before him. Their daughter can only observe helplessly as their increasingly rocky interaction transforms into physical turbulence, with the car swerving dangerously off-course and the bloodied gash on the side of the woman's face carrying the implicit suggestion of domestic violence (although less implicit than the device used in Old Fangs). At this stage, in a rare instance where we see a second vehicle appear on the road, the protagonist himself becomes the one left behind. Unable to repair his defunct vehicle, he is forced to continue his journey on foot, at which point the surrounding landscape once again falls under the grip of winter, signifying not only the protagonist's transitioning into old age but also his return to a state of complete isolation. This time, the isolation is born not of a desire for independence but of others choosing to shun him. Without a vehicle of his own, he finds himself enfeebled and at the mercy of others, and his efforts to hitch a ride with other motorists are ignored. Finally, help arrives in the form of a young female motorist who pulls over and allows him to share her car. Amid her display of tender compassion, turning up the car heater on noticing how cold he is, he becomes aware of the wooden horse dangling from her rear view mirror, and the film ends on his moment of realisation that he has shared a car with this individual once before. It is, of course, the same horse held by his daughter earlier on in the film, but we might recall that the horse's presence goes back even further, to when the protagonist himself was a child. The horse is a symbol of childhood innocence, but its reappearance at the end of the film also indicates a lingering connection between father and daughter which has endured their time of estrangement (unlike the two wolves in Old Fangs, who ultimately decide they are beyond reconciliation). The cycle of resurgence and abandonment that characterised the protagonist's own journey has, in effect, been broken, for it appears that a character has purposely gone backwards in order to be reconciled with one left behind. We do not see how their future father-daughter relations play out, but in this unexpected act of clemency we find hope, for the first time, of a broken bond being renewed, and with it the possibility that spring may come again.