15/11/2023 - While Western Europe is battling bedbugs, Latvian director of Armenian origin Aik Karapetian drags the viewer deep into a teeming manor, alongside a family of four

Having had its international premiere in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s Baltic Competition, Aik Karapetian’s black-humoured psychological horror The Brazen dissects the ugliest truths of a seemingly pristine family.

Choreographer Helena (Marta Grase), her husband Rihards (Didzis Jonovs) and their two children return to her late entomologist father's abode to renovate the house for her dance lessons. While working together and arguing about the wall colour and furniture, they discover that the house is infested with insects. The revelation opens another can of worms – the growing resentment between the spouses.

The bugs appear progressively: larvae feast on a boar’s cadaver, termites and beetles lurk in textiles and walls, scarabs in jars. The outbreak affects each family member differently, exposing their innermost fears and secrets. These psychological arcs are the film’s anchorage, with Helena feeling like the most full-blooded character and son Ēriks (Gregors Laķis) embodying a solitary kind of resistance.

Rihards, the dominant and stubborn family head, views the infestation as a problem. The rational and righteous psychoanalysis professor is made anxious by things beyond his control, so he takes a logical approach, such as applying insecticide and insisting on leaving. In a Latvian-language interview for the national culture press (click here), Karapetian discloses that Rihards’s character drew inspiration from Jordan Peterson. With Helena as the progressive one, Karapetian imagined this family as an allegory for the ideological conflict between conservative and liberal fronts. Despite the coherence, the contrast is so stark that it makes one wonder how they even became a couple.

Rihard’s lines are stiff-sounding, raising questions about the age-old problem of unnatural dialogue in Latvian cinema. It could be related to the fact that this is the cinematic debut for Jonovs, a real-life psychological health professional. Apart from Grase, the cast consists of non-professional actors with profiles matching their characters.

The bugs don't affect Helena as much as the painting of a pagan sun that she discovers while ripping off the wallpaper. As her infatuation with the sun intensifies, so does her loathing towards her cheating and despotic husband. The scenes with Helena spasmodically moving in the sun’s thrall and erupting during dinner are particularly captivating. However, the most gripping one is the staircase sequence where, for a split second, Helena resembles Regan from The Exorcist. Grase’s acting is expressive and intuitive, with her reactions feeling the most true-to-life.

Their introverted teenage son Ēriks finds the bugs spellbinding. Obsessed with existentialism and all things francophone, he stages suicidal self-portraits and microscopically observes scarabs and larvae. Ēriks remains in solitude, where he can put on makeup away from Rihard’s conservative eyes. Meanwhile, the easily ignorable six-year-old Maija (Rūta Liepiņa) plays a significant role in reuniting the family. Even with quarrelling parents and bugs crawling in her ears, she remains innocent and playful.

DoP Jurģis Kmins, sound director Ernests Ansons, composer Ivars Arutyunyan and art director Aldis Meinerts operate in harmony, crafting a typically “Karapetian” film. Detailed and naturalistic bug close-ups contrast with the gloomy colour palette, while the orchestral and slightly ritualistic music score contributes to the atmosphere of drama and mysticism.

With its buzzing parasites, gothic exterior and freaky grandeur, the manor feels like a true House of Usher. The house shields them from the world while the maze-like interior distances them from each other. In this claustrophobic environment, every mundane concern and worm cluster further ramp up the inner turmoil, simultaneously bringing them closer to their impending downfall.

In Latvian, the title encapsulates the notion of shame (kauns means “shame”, while bezkaunīgie means “shameless”), which is the underlying theme of The Brazen. The film embraces its shamelessness by eliciting thoughts of whether the events were real or a psychological experiment carried out by Rihards on his students.

The Brazen was produced by Latvia’s Vino Films.