Blood ties

KALEIDOSCOPE | Brothers Toby and Rupert Jones team up for a Hitchcockian nightmare in a damaged brain…

The flat is claustrophobic by design, for the claustrophobia of the film is the claustrophobia of Carl’s mind,” says writer/director Rupert Jones, walking Teasers around an apartment in east London. The block that contains it is many storeys high, at once brutalist and beautiful, while the spiral staircase leading to its floors is both elegant and reflective of the twisted psyche of Kaleidoscope’s protagonist.

Carl is played by Rupert’s brother, Toby. The two previously united on 2006 comic short The Sickie, but this first feature together is the dark, fractured tale of a loner who awakens to a dead woman in his bathroom. Matters aren’t helped when his domineering mother (Anne Reid) arrives to burrow deep into his damaged brain with her incessant, pointed yammering.

“The ingenuity of the script meant that Carl’s layering was dealt with by the structure, kaleidoscopically,” says Toby, discussing the psyche of a character who’s gentle and vulnerable, yet rather terrifying. There’s a hint of Norman Bates, but the similarities aren’t forced and much of Carl’s backstory is withheld. “Certain things I need to know and had to invent,” continues Toby. “Rupert was keen to preserve some of the mystery of what happened and when.”

Toby points out correlations with the work of Michael Powell (Peeping Tom) and Joseph Losey (The Servant). But this absorbing psychological thriller most recalls the oppressive mind-melters of Roman Polanski and the dark chills of Hitchcock.

“It’s extremely flattering that people recognise the influences,” smiles Rupert. “The Polanski film I’m most intrigued by is The Tenant – its atmosphere and imagery seared my imagination when I saw the film on TV, as a boy. It belonged to the adult world, about themes and concerns too dark and mysterious for my young psyche.”

You might say the shifting, constantly changing Kaleidoscope follows the very much same pattern.

ETA | 10 NOVEMBER / KALEIDOSCOPE OPENS LATER THIS YEAR.

Toby Jones’ Carl wrestles with his mum Aileen, played by Anne Reid.