When Chloé Zhao premiered Hamnet last August at the Telluride Film Festival, rather than give a speech, she introduced the film with a guided meditation. The director asked the audience to close their eyes and place a hand on their chest, to notice the presence of their body in their seat, to inhale and exhale with a sigh. She asked that they pay attention to their hearts.
It is a fitting introduction for her aching adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s celebrated 2020 historical fiction novel. Hamnet imagines the life of Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) and the premature death of a son, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), that inspires her husband, William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), to write his greatest play. Zhao’s rendering, while making more room for Shakespeare than the book does, is told largely from the perspective of Hathaway — a rebellious, witchy healer whom we meet curled up foetally in a forest. It is earthy and elevating, a story told through bodies, breath and nature. During shooting, the director practised a similar meditation with the cast and crew every day.
“It was about sharing how we made the film,” says Zhao, 43, when we meet in a central London hotel. Surrounded by essential oils, a plate of kiwi and speakers playing soft ambient music, Zhao exudes an aura of calm, plaiting her long black hair in tiny strands as she talks. “I asked my actors to come to the set in a state between consciousness and unconsciousness. To be unconscious you need to be drunk, passed out, sleeping. You could try ayahuasca, but a couple of minutes of breathing signals to your psyche: I’m willing to descend.”