Lorraine Caffery

Emma Josephson’s Bury Your Fish is an esoteric journey into the annals of the mind. The film, big and bold yet surprisingly contained, follows the directionless Sonia as she takes counsel from a faraway light flashing morse code. Like a sailor seeking refuge from the high seas, she turns her eyes towards the beacon with hopes of finding the sanctuary its shore promises.

Josephson’s film, like the light, is mysterious.

Sonia, played with raw humanity by Arkira Chantaratananond, decodes its directives from her apartment window. “TAKE IT” the light instructs, and the next day Sonia does as she stuffs a curb-alerted chair into her car. That night the light speaks again: “IGNORE HER”. This time, the order is not so easily followed. When a concerned friend, played with great polarity by Cassandra Moselle, fails to see the spectral phenomenon Sonia attempts to convince her of its presence and power with alarming urgency. The cracks in her character’s façade erode into chasms as we come to realize what the barren tins of takeout food suggest: Sonia is alone, isolated in her apartment and from all those around her. Is the light a message from a higher power or could it be a delusion? Is it guiding her to something greater or an otherworldly, sinister force?

Akira Chantaratananond as Sonia the main character in Emma Josephson’s Bury Your Fish

It’s up for interpretation, Josephson asserting herself as a director who favors atmosphere over answers. She evokes feelings that are all too familiar, with inspired collaborations from cinematographer, Sarah Whelden and composer, Robert Antonio Martinez. Through inventive shots and a surrealist score, Sonia is rendered as both unreliable and relatable. She embodies so many of us in these ‘post’ pandemic times: anxious, uncertain, and fearful. When there is so much insecurity surrounding our future, how does one cope? Some drink. Some smoke. Sonia looks to the light. It whispers direction when none is to be had. Promises a brighter future when the world seems bleak. Offers companionship when, up until recently, it was verboten to leave one’s house. On its face, Sonia’s precarious mental state seems to be slipping. A closer look encourages you to consider that maybe yours is, too. The effect is haunting.

The final scenes of Bury Your Fish suggest our adrift sailor has finally washed ashore. Sonia seems to have found peace, albeit enigmatic. I cannot say the same for myself. I think about Josephson’s fluorescent phantasm when I drive through traffic. Later, as I push a cart down the supermarket aisle. Again, when I close my eyes to sleep. I wonder. I mull. I muse. The mysterious morse code flickers in the dark depths of my mind’s eye, first green, then red, then white. Indeed, it seems the light that bewitched Sonia has begun to take hold of me. Such is testament to the staying power of Bury Your Fish. There’s something about this film that holds tight and doesn’t let go – even after its fifteen-minute runtime has long expired.