SURGE directed by Aniel Karia (United Kingdom , 2020)
If there were an acting class devoted to madness studies then ‘Surge’ would be required viewing.
For ‘madness’ read ‘mental health issues’ although where one ends and the other begins is very much the moot point here.
What this debut feature film does show is how a cocktail of loneliness, alienation and a loss of hope can have devastating effects.
Director Aneil Karia has gone on record to say that he didn’t set out to make a social commentary. However, many, I include myself among them, will see it and wonder why no-one was looking out for Joseph, played with spectacular authenticity by Ben Whishaw.
Any other actor in this demanding role would have made it either laughable or hard to believe. Whishaw gives an acting masterclass as a man who flips from being a mild mannered individual into someone who becomes a stranger to himself. His journey towards insanity looks both terrifying and fascinating .
His freedom makes anything possible but also thrusts him into crazy, surreal situations. He turns to crime, steals (and crashes) a quad bike, gatecrashes a wedding and trashes a hotel room. Why does he do all this?
As a member of security staff at Stansted airport his security job of searching passengers is challenging but could be a lot worse. His father is unfuriatingly distant and his mother smotheringly close but this is not so untypical. There’s a hint that he has some health issues, evidenced by difficulty in swallowing and a habit of biting hard objects when eating. Nothing is specific enough, however, to provide all the answers and this, I suspect, is what the director wants.
It’s the chaos and unpredictability of life in a metropolis that Karia wants to capture. London offers a liberating anonimity but can also be desperately isolating. Like all major cities it can be exciting but disturbing.
Joseph’s mother says, with massive understatement, “This is not what a good life looks like” but she also reacts immediately when his father accuses Joseph of ruining their lives – “He hasn’t ruined mine!” she snaps back.
Aside from being in awe of the boldness of Whishaw’s acting, it’s worth seeing this film to see Jasmine Jobson in a role outside of her brilliant potrayal of Jaq is Top Boy. In Surge she has a small part – not so much a love interest as a temporary obession. She is party to what could rank as one of the unsexiest love scenes in movie history.
Another film that came to mind while watching Surge was Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down from 1993 in which Michael Douglas turns into a raging psychopath because he can no longer stomach the rituals of polite society while he is dying inside.
Surge is less showy than this Hollywood version of insanity but in reacting to normalcy there is the same sense that the only thing that really matters in life is being kind and considerate to one another. A greengrocer who tells a ragged and crazed looking Joseph to “take care” shows that the comfort of strangers is possible. Most other people prefer not to engage with a man who looks so unpredictable. Ultimately, the only person Joseph harms is himself.
Surge is a surreal and bold work that is effectively a one man show. On stage it could be a monologue. On screen, the city becomes a character to feed off. The absence of back story is both a strength and a weakness.
I would have liked to have known more about why Joseph becomes so unhinged but out in the real world you never really know what drives behaviour. Probably, the most disturbing aspect is that Whishaw manages to make madness look so liberating. It’s as much a purge as a surge, a mental and physical decluttering of all the shittiest aspects of the modern world.
'Surge' can currently be streamed in the UK on MUBI
