This is England

Okay so last weeks screen This is England was a really nice surprise watch.

The film by Shane Meadows (2006) was a look into British realism such as films from the French new wave 400 Blows. This was very much its British cousin in every sense.

The film itself rotated around a young boy Shaun, not a very much liked boy at his local school. Shaun almost sliding into isolation after his father being killed in the Falklands war is picked up by a local group of children who take him under his wing.
Not at first entirely fitting in at first but eventually becoming as thick as thieves with these bandits of misfits themselves.

All is golden, the band of misfits have their fun by generally doing what they want and going where the wind takes them, until the status quo is suddenly and dramtically changed with the return of Combo played by Stephen Graham.

Things are literally turned on their heads when Combo returns from a prison stretch. He returns with a radical ideology of how Britain is being over run with immigrants and people of colour. The fun loving group are split down the middle as they are forced to question their morals and values as Combo makes them decide what team they are playing for.

Shaun is quilted into banding up with Combo and his group of thugs, he is led down a road that eventually shows him the true volatile nature of Combo and his ideology.

The film was fantastic from start to finish, it was funny, good hearted and also had a very real, very hard hitting under-running plot. It gave enough relief in just the right amounts in just the right places through out the film. Even with the film tackling racism and such we were never taken to far down this bleak road with out the pressure cap being released a few times.

This is a mistake I feel these types of film seem to make and well its a mistake. Yes you are setting out to make a hard hitting film that forces a culture or group of people to view itself in the mirror. Yes you want to raise some very valid points and such but making the audience suffer to much by being too bleak all the time doesn't work. We as an audience are at first effected by this but as soon as it just becomes a situation of and this sounds very harsh but it becomes almost like "I just don't care anymore, this is too much"

What this is England done very well is mix in with its very hard hitting and bleak plot was comical relief moments and light hearted tone. This means when we are faced with characters having to make difficult decisions or a moral value being thrown at you, it works all that more because we are still engaged and connected with the film. Films that are bleak, bleak and more bleakness are just too much to watch. Every time I watch a film like that I can just picture a man with a really big axe cutting the connection with the film and the audience.

Overall I thought the plot was engaging and dare I say it fun at times, every character were real and most of them likeable. The unlikable characters were intentionally unlikeable which really did add a nice dynamic to the piece. It was a surprise to me how much I liked this film. I have to say the title This is England when I heard it the scottish blood in me did begin to boil somewhat. I thought I was going to be hit with English values and such, it never really made a big deal of England, it was more Britain in general. The title did put me off watching it before so maybe a bad title decision...maybe not for me to judge really.

The Road

So another post-apocalyptic film release, now not saying I'm not a fan of these style of films, but recently it just seems like an excuse to throw is some sweeping CG shots.

From just even looking at the trailer for 'The Road' directed by John Hillcoat is was obvious this was something that wasn't going to follow this trend. Yes we get the odd CG shot to establish they are living in this type of world but the rest really is done by character depth and the cinematography of the film.

Now the basis of the story is a boy and his 'papa' on the road trying to survive in a dying world. They can trust no one apart from themselves as this world has turned most people into cannibals and thieves.

I think from about ten minutes into the film I was just amazed at how amazing this film really was, we had barely started on the journey in the film and the characters felt real with plenty of depth and well the plot felt raw and real. The story was so self contained around these two characters but as a member of the audience I never felt bored or felt like I needed more from this film. Yes it did seem odd that they came across very few refugee's at times but that is just being extremely picky.

I felt the cinematography of this film did make this film what it is, watching it you just felt cold. I felt like jumping into a hot bath at the end of the film. The bland muddy colours with the constant grey skies which gradually got darker and darker over time really did add that extra dimension to this film. If it had just been father and son traveling down this road with blue skies and the sun on their faces, well lets jut not even go there.

This film was a film I had to build myself up to go and see, from what other people said about it destroying them emotionally. I could never find a day were in I was ready to be taken apart in such a manner. Who really wants to be put in a downer after a day at university or work? Not me to be sure.

Me and Paul just decided to go for it in the end, and what I can say is yes its a very bleak no relief style of film. But its very strange although its bleak from start to finish we are never really taken to that level of shear emotional destruction. You could argue we are at times in the movie taken to this level, but its very fast at taking us back to normal bleak-ness we as the audience are never made to suffer too long at any great length. This adds the tension the film has done so very well, if it was just scene after scene of them being in danger the risk well wears off on us. We become desensitised that we can just sit back and know they are going to be fine, the fact this film only puts them into real pearl a few times makes this tension work so much more effectively.

Some might say this is a bad thing? no is the answer. Then all you are left with is a film obviously trying to hard and it becomes one of those films you look at and think, they only made this film to scoop a few awards. The story of just these two characters living day by day is enough, its real and helps you connect alot more with them, its not all 'oh the drama' in every second scene.

Its believable and well down right brilliance, it really makes 'The book of The Bible...sorry Eli' have I just ruined that for you? oh wells! Don't throw your religious propaganda film at me in a convert manner!

Anyways! back to the point, a brilliant film with some really award winning performances put into it, a plot that rings true with no obvious flaws to it. Well they had to fund the movie some how, they wrote in the coke placement as well as anyone could really.

I think the characters of the father and son really did just feed of one another, I loved the little touches such as the little boy wearing his mothers hat. Its just the little things like this that made this film what it is. They felt real and you really did feel empathy for the father and how he constantly needs to be on the ball to look after his son. One mistake and they are done for, you really do get a sense for this in his performance. You really did feel like he has been looking after this boy for a number of years and has had to protect him from this world on more than one occasion. Yes the little boys 'weeping' does become rather irritating and times, but only very rarely.

Now flaws...After walking away knowing I had seen an amazing picture, I did feel somewhat empty in the fact that I didn't really feel like I had been taken on a big enough journey. We know they are heading to the cost but we only see the map once. You never really get a sense of were they are really heading to at any one time. They are constantly on the move but, well I just didn't get that entire feeling of being on a journey.

This was my only real problem with the film. Not a real good sense of film geography during this movie, I felt I needed to know more where they were and how far away from the coast they were, so in those moments of pearl and such you can get extra feeling of 'But their so close!' This can be over looked just from the rest of the film being something really special, now theres a word I haven't used to describe a film before. Special?

Watch it, see for youself how cinema should be made. I counted all of about 3/4 CG shots in the entire movie and it felt more like the end of the world than any post-apocalyptic move I have ever seen by a mile...and a half...and three quarters.

The Snow is gone people!

The snow is gone and I am loving it personally, being able to venture out into town or the Academy with out tip toeing the whole way there because the council doesn't understand the concept of not owning a car!

Anyways I could really blog about how much I dislike snow and how over-rated the whole thing is but we'd be here all day.

Were back from the holidays and already a week has shot by us, where are these weeks going? I feel like I'm going to wake up and be in 3rd year any day soon. Now theres a scary thought, actually having to go out and get a real job soon! No more student discount...thats not even worth thinking about, I might just faint. Anyways!

This week has been a mixture of getting back into the swing of things whilst at the same time being thrown alot of work to do. Its all rather worrying about thinking about starting either of the tasks that we have been set. I'm sure once I have started them both it will be fine, but as with all reports the hardest part is actually finding the time and confidence to actually start it.

We had all submitted our scripts to Richard the week before we started back and were awaiting the Skype phone call. As last time mines didn't work this was going to be new to me. I went along to Gavin's flat to use his computer/internet this time, the video had worked for Charlotte perfectly fine just before me, but for some reason it didn't for me. I'm not going to lie I didn't particularly shout for Gavin all that loudly when it didn't. The idea of being on 'display' would make me feel a little okward, having just the audio was fine, it was high enough quality to get by. It also made me feel alot more comfortable so I wasn't just sitting there saying 'yeah...yeah' to all Richards points. I actually found myself sticking up for a few points and explaining others alot better than in any other Richard tutorial.

Not in anyway saying I just wasn't taking on board what Richard was saying but I was able to explain points better, and well I did stick up for my ending. I will look at it and see if it can be explained better but its staying!

Zam was back for a full day of looking at realism in film. Zam's class always follows a general format of looking at a clip from a film then deconstructing it. This format I feel works very well and we all generally pitch in with what we think made that clip work and not work. I feel it gives a certain rhythm to the class that makes it feel alot more relaxed, theres nothing worse than just being talked to for a whole day.

As with all Zams classes I feel I always take away new good and valuable points from it. Maybe a whole day was a little much but if it was going to be a full day of any class I would prefer it to be a Zams class.



Now with Andy's and Ray's assignment I choose to go to the Mitchell Library to try and dig up some resources that could help. Such as autobiographies and the type. I was really shocked to find just how little film resources the Mitchell actually has, I would type in film and/or cinematography into the computer terminal and what little turned up was book that wasn't actually in the Mitchell.

Maybe I was doing it all wrong but the woman at the desk could only suggest looking at small area of the library, which only seemed to contain books written when the digital thing was happening. Books titles 'Digital and what it means for Film' were in abundance but they weren't of any value of and were seriously out-dated.

Looks like this is going to be an online research task, or well a little trip to a book shop is in order I think.


Well my feet really haven't touched the group this week and with re-drafting Richard's script and starting on other projects we have been set, sorry no film review in this post I need to get ready for work. I promise tomorrow I will blog my brains out on films films films!