Joanna Hogg’s latest film, The Eternal Daughter (in cinemas now), is a ghost story; a tale of a mother and daughter – both played by Hogg’s longtime collaborator Tilda Swinton – who stay in a remote hotel where the spectres of the past are everywhere. It’s a wonderfully atmospheric piece, imbued with Hogg’s signature understated strength, and inflected with the same matter-of-fact eeriness that defined Jonathan Miller’s timeless 1968 MR James TV adaptation Whistle and I’ll Come to You.
It was Hogg’s executive producer Martin Scorsese who encouraged her to make a ghost story, believing that she was at the right point in her life and career to do so. But Hogg’s films have always been haunted by ghosts, and while The Eternal Daughter may be the first of her movies to explicitly declare itself to be part of this genre, it builds upon familiar themes and ideas that make up her cinematic soul.
