Went Up The Hill review: This ghost story starts with a funeral

FILM

Went Up The Hill ★★★

(MA) 100 minutes

I was not surprised to learn that Samuel Van Grinsven’s ghost story was influenced by Ingmar Bergman’s Persona . It’s pervaded by a strong sense of Nordic gloom and punctuated by some very long silences.

Dacre Montgomery and Vicki Krieps in Went up the Hill. Credit: Kirsty Griffin

It’s actually set in New Zealand and that, too, is hardly surprising. Perhaps it’s the climate, but New Zealand does a strong line in films that exploit the loneliness of the landscape. One of Went Up the Hill’s producers calls this genre “the cinema of unease”, which is pretty close to the mark.

This example begins with a funeral. Jack (Dacre Montgomery) nervously arrives at a service commemorating the death of Elizabeth, the woman who gave him up when h