Filmmaker Carlo Mirabella-Davis made his debut in 2011, when he co-directed, along with Nick August-Perna and Chris Dapkins, the documentary The Swell Season, which addressed the romance between musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, which won the 2007 Oscar for the film "Once" in the Best Original Song category. He also participated in the screenplay, and the reviews were very positive, but the documentary was a work between three filmmakers.

The director had already received high praise for his short film Knife Point and was interested in filmmaking from a very young age. As a fun fact, he was a classmate of the now famous Jordan Peele, who pushed him to pursue his dream of filmmaking. In 2018 he achieved the goal of solo directing his film, the shooting of which began in May 2018 using a glass house in Poughkeepsie, New York as a location. In 2019 it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. It subsequently screened at the Deauville Film Festival receiving a Special Award and in 2020 was nominated for Best First Time Director at the Gotham Awards.

He grew up in East Meredith, a town in upstate New York, which is why the main character says in one of the scenes that he is from that place. Because Swallow is a very personal project for Carlo Mirabella-Davis. He wrote the script a long time ago, inspired by a real case in his family. The grandmother, during the 1950s, had an unhappy marriage, which caused her to suffer from depression and led to obsessive-compulsive disorder, which later led to an eating disorder that made her eat bars of soap every day.

The filmmaker's grandmother was committed to a mental institution and at that time psychiatric specialists applied methods that today are considered insane, such as lobotomy. She had a very tragic life and that is why the young filmmaker wanted to pay tribute to her grandmother by writing and directing this film.

What is the plot of Swallow?

Hunter is a beautiful girl who gets engaged and marries Richie, son of Michael and Katherine a wealthy family. Richie is promoted in his father's company and his father gives them a huge and luxurious house for the couple to live happily. Every girl's dream is to marry a rich man, but Hunter needs affection, something that is becoming increasingly scarce. It seems that her role is to be an object woman. When she becomes pregnant, a strange eating disorder is triggered in which she cannot resist the desire to consume inedible objects, which will endanger her life and set off alarm bells in Richie's family. What is the cause of this disorder? What is this disorder? Is she insane? Why does she self-harm? What is the cause of her disorder?

_Source

We never see how Hunter and Richie met. When the film begins they are already engaged and Richie's father, a millionaire businessman, gives them a beautiful house to live in happily.

What becomes clear to us is that Richie seems to have chosen her because she is a beautiful woman. As he moves up in the company, he becomes more and more distant from her. In addition, she is constantly relegated to the background.

Richie doesn't seem to care much about conversations with her. For him, business is important and Richie's family, the in-laws, don't seem to care much about what she has to say either. There are several scenes that emphasize that, we see how Hunter is a trophy girl, perfect for showing off as a wife, but she doesn't really fit into that wealthy family.

loneliness in which she is immersed, inside a big house, with luxuries, but as a person, she feels empty and alone. That feeling is not new to her, it seems that in her past she was a child with little affection.

The trigger of all the conflict in the plot, will be the pregnancy. Now Hunter is going to be a mother, apparently with the ideal man, who seems to love her. With a rich family, something that the mother-in-law always reminds her, that she should feel lucky, as if she were worthless.

_Source

Richie and her family are characters that reflect the coldness of a rich person, who doesn't seem to care about Hunter's feelings. Who they always see with condescension. It is precisely a phrase from a self-help book that leads Hunter to try something different in the routine of his life.

He will start with a small precious stone that he keeps, it will be the first thing he swallows. That action seems to give him pleasure, and a sense of tranquility that will alleviate his state of anxiety and depression.

The danger comes when he starts ingesting other objects, which he will recover by defecating them and keep them as trophies. After he starts, it will be impossible to stop this desire to eat different things, batteries, sharp objects, etc. This will put your life and the baby's life at risk

All this is disturbing and for many it may not be believable. Who is going to eat a needle? How can he feel relief? How can he not control this desire to swallow objects? The director shows us with a style of psychological suspense, those facts that for any person may seem crazy.

But the film is more than psychological suspense, behind what Hunter does, there is a drama that goes back to his origins, even to the very moment of his procreation. That's what I liked about the story, the way it combines the psychological thriller aspect with the drama of a person suffering from the symptoms of a disease that is difficult to understand.

_Source

The illness

Hunter, the beautiful protagonist of the story, is sick, she has a psychological and digestive disorder that leads her to do what she does, it exists in real life, the eating disorder is called: Pica.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association is a psychological and eating disorder, which manifests itself through the ingestion of elements or substances that feed us and have no nutrients, eating objects such as stones, dirt, screws, nails, needles, pieces of plaster, etc., which can endanger the health and life of people.

It is an uncontrollable desire, no matter how much the person tries not to do it, something in his head makes him consume some kind of object or element, which produces a kind of pleasure and relieves his anxiety.

The specific causes of this type of disorder are not clearly defined. It can affect people with intellectual disabilities, autism, pregnant women, some disorder that occurred during development. It can also occur in people with a difficult childhood, with little affection from their parents or with some childhood event that triggers this type of mental illness.

In the case of the protagonist of the film, there are several factors that affect her, which come from childhood, due to a specific event, which we will discover when watching the film. And it ends up manifesting itself when she becomes pregnant and feels lacking in any sense in the midst of a family that provides everything economically, but does not feel true love.

This disease is amazing, I recommend you to read this article: Link

You will be impressed, as I was, to research this disorder, unknown to most people.

_Source

I was satisfied with the final closure of the story, which can be controversial, depending on the ideas of those who see it. Hunter's decision shows the transformation of her character, who for most of the film is docile, always putting up with others making decisions for her. But in the final third, it's time for her to confront her past and become a strong woman.

For some it will be very wrong what she does, but in reality she finally makes a decision about her life. About her future and about her body. I am an advocate for the freedom of each individual and, from my point of view, Hunter is doing the right thing and the best thing for her life.

In real life there are treatments for character illness, but the best thing for her will be to face once and for all a past that affected her growth and development. Everything she suffers from today stems from childhood trauma. Pregnancy and her boyfriend were the catalyst that triggered the disorder. And all of that has to be discarded, all of it!

Unlike the filmmaker's grandmother, who had no opportunities and was locked up in a mental institution where she received cruel treatments for her illness, the film's protagonist achieves quite the opposite, a woman who ends up taking charge of her life and hoping to be happy someday.

_Source

The hypnotic art direction.

In addition to telling a good story, the whole visual aspect of the film manages to hypnotize us, is something that most of those who have seen it agree on. The art direction, the costume department, the set designer and the director of photography do an extraordinary job. Transforming the house where much of the film takes place, in a character with its own entity.

Excellent work of Frank Baran, in charge of decorating the sets of the film. Where each piece of that glass prison, which is the home of the couple, fits perfectly with the atmosphere of anguish suffered by the protagonist.

There are some beautiful frames, which reflect Hunter's mood. A despondency and sadness, in a place that would be the dream of many, but for them is a soulless entity. Just a space in which they go through their daily routine.

Masterful work by cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi, who this time maintains her style with the abundant use of colors, but in a more minimalist way compared to her previous works. She was in charge of photography last year for the film Charm City Kings, which I recommend and for a fun film I saw in 2018, called Cam, which I also suggest watching. She is a cinematographer who excels in her visual approaches. Each frame is carefully crafted to be a work of art. Watch out for this talented cinematographer, don't be surprised to see her with a big award in a couple of years. I can easily see her working with Nicolas Winding Refn, if you like that director's visual style, I notice certain references and influences in katelin's work.

The music is composed by Nathan Halpern, who has been involved in creating soundtracks for many films. On this occasion he makes a composition that affects the suspense levels of the film, helping to create that feeling that something can happen at any time. The composition of the Tempest theme stands out, which you can listen to in this youtube video:

_Source