Sybil works at an undertakers. It’s a lonely job, with few perks. So she takes solace where she can.
People pity the dead, but the dead are laughing in their sleep. Sybil (Rebecca Calder – House of the Dragon, Kandahar), charms her way through life, rarely straying from the societally expected path – her obedience to rules giving her the politeness that makes her excellent at her job. Calder beautifully plays with the temperatures in Sybil’s character, leaving you unsettled and questioning whether she’s going to recite a poem or anecdote, or stick something under your ribs. Calder’s hold on the speed and breath of her delivery pushes the film into the hardest of lines to straddle – psychological thriller and classic, primal horror.
Adapted from director Joanne Mitchell’s award-winning 2018 short film Sybil (original story by Tracy Sheals), Broken Bird received its world premiere as the opening film at this year’s Frightfest. We’re introduced to Sybil Chamberlain – a professional mortician at a funeral parlour – as she goes about her daily life and work, but all the while she feels an emptiness that she’s spent her life trying to fill. With her loneliness and desperation for companionship tipping the balance into obsession, reality and reason begin to slip away. How can she ever find love and happiness when her only real companions are the dead?
Broken Bird explores all of the things we do around death, and while the dead don’t care, there are things it reveals to us when we see a dead body (whether we know them or not). The things we wished we’d done or said – not realising how much we missed something about someone, how much we as humans have a capacity for love and yearning, or how much we hide our true selves from the world. Mitchell (The Outing), treats Broken Bird with a great deal of love and care, not shying away from playing with the textures of whimsy, grief and unfiltered suspense. She grounds us in people being together – talking, sharing, performing genuinely and disingenuously for each other. She demands that we fill in the space in the rooms and look for the implications and things between the lines, giving us the permission to create our suspense and take from it what truly scares or devastates us.
This cleverly sets us up for the real horror show, which is that Sybil finds comfort and connection with the dead, straddling corpses and finding tranquility in their stone cold flesh. The restraint from the script and Mitchell makes it all the more creepy – we’re going for gothic and sinister here, giving us the space to feel the depravity of the contact instead of overt violence or sexual gratification, and the crew deliver wonderfully. Against a backdrop of music that could be just as at home in a romance, the whole experience leaves you a little light-headed, showcasing a creative team that understands that true horror is in the contradictions, and the way conflicting ideas or elements can push and pull away from each other.
Broken Bird is clearly a film that’s been nurtured and heavily examined from so many angles to centre on the finest point. We all want connection and we all have an affinity to the dead – whether you’re drawn to them or you’re running from them. Whichever you are, the dead can show you so much about yourself.
BROKEN BIRD opened this year’s FrightFest and will be coming to UK Cinemas from 30th August
Sampira’s Archive – Broken Bird (2024)
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