Ink Wash Stains The Heart @TIFF 2024

You know those films you watch that you don’t realize how much you like until you start thinking about them more? It’s almost similar to when you start liking someone after encountering them and you start thinking about them. The film Ink Wash does just that: you start to like the film a lot more when you think about it. Director Sarra Tsorakidis makes her debut film feature with a lot of poetic impact on the audience at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It is because many of us can resonate with the main character Lena played by Illinca Hārnut who also co-wrote Ink Wash. Lena is a painter approaching her 40s who is going through a sudden breakup. She finds that her former long term lover has impregnated his younger girlfriend in such a short period. This is where her expectations of the relationship and her own life start to take a crossroads and begin to take a toll on her. Many of us go through the same tumultuous journey when our expectations are not met the way we imagined them to be and at a time in our lives when we want things to happen.

Lena takes a job in the countryside of Romania at a hotel that is under new brutalist ownership. Here she is to paint a difficult mural on one of the walls of the hotel that would make the guests dazzled and inspired to be there. Lena also meets the owner Asger played by Kenneth Christensen who is building this hotel which was makeshift at one point. Asger serves as more than an associate of Lena where the two conjure up a light romance. Little do they both know that this situationship is just there to get them both through their tough but character-building times.

But the main focus of director Sarra Tsorakidis‘ Ink Wash is Lena and how she processes these challenging times. This is why she leaves it all behind in Bucharest and goes to the countryside of Romania. It may look like she is trying to find herself but she is building her new self. The audience sees that she often takes a hike in the woods. This is reflective of what is going on in the life of Lena is that it is important for her mindset. Which is the only way out of the woods is to go through it.

This is why the audience sees that there are so many sequences of nature taking its course. There would be a sequence where it is thunderstorming and raining on a night with the wind blowing through the hotel or the waterfall just graciously going over a pristine area. These sequences poetically show what is going on in the mind of Lena as she embraces this roller coaster of emotions in her journey through the woods.

What’s more important is what director Sarra Tsorakidis’ Ink Wash relays to the audience. Which is the challenging moments that are thrown to us once a breakup of Lena’s magnitude occurs. Many of us turn to more self-deprecating behaviours but Lena’s character maturely gets through this breakup. For sure she still goes through many rough patches and uses Asger to get through those moments but she does what she can to get through them.

These challenges and obstacles are thrown our way just like Lena to make us much stronger when coming out of the woods at the end. It is to make us a different person rather than still being that person who was left behind because that person is no longer valuable. Tsorakidis’ direction along with Hârnut’s writing go hand in hand showing us that this process often comes when we least expect it to. This is why FERNTV even writing this article makes me now love this film Ink Wash that much more. It puts a stain on the heart but as time goes on, it is easily washed away.