Sindre Kaspersen
English screenwriter and director Andrea Arnold's feature film debut which she wrote, is based on characters developed by Danish screenwriter and director Lone Scherfig and Danish screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen. It premiered In competition at the 59th Cannes International Film Festival in 2006, was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 31st Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, was shot on location in Glasgow, Scotland and is a United Kingdom production which was produced by producer Carrie Comerford. It tells the story about a woman named Jackie Morrison who lives in an apartment in Maryhill, Glasgow in Scotland. One day whilst Jackie is in the city eye control room where she works, she notices the face of a man on one of the monitors whom she recognizes.Distinctly and subtly directed by UK filmmaker Andrea Arnold, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated mostly from the main character's point of view, draws a moving and humane portrayal of a Scottish woman who after witnessing a man named Clyde Henderson whom she has not seen in six years begins to observe him closely. While notable for it's distinct and atmospheric milieu depictions, fine cinematography by Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan, low-keyed production design by production designer Helen Scott and use of sound and colors, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about a person whom instigated by her sense of justice and search for closure becomes increasingly involved in the life of a person whom she has very little knowledge of, depicts an internal study of character.This heartrending, psychological, understated and observational drama from the mid-2000s which is set in a city in Scotland and where a wife and mother's viewpoint is gradually changed and something is awakened in her as she learns more about the person she is examining, is impelled and reinforced by it's narrative structure, substantial character development, subtle continuity, use of music, significant realism, incisive examination of its central themes and the commendable and naturalistic acting performances by Scottish actress Kate Dickie, Scottish actor Tony Curran, Scottish actor Martin Compston and English actress Natalie Press. A lyrical, unsentimental and liberating directorial debut which gained, among numerous other awards, the Special Jury Prize at the 59th Cannes Film Festival in 2006.
fedor8
If you're an actress by the name of Kate Dickie, then I suppose it's destiny that you should get be in a movie which has an erect penis rubbing against your vagina. Add to that Tony Curran's fateful name ("kurac" means "penis" in Serbo-Croatian), and you've got a double-shot of XXX destiny. Dickie and Currac shooting porn? I should have known; it was written in the stars. Not exactly Gable and Leigh, but close enough (if you consider 300 million lights years close enough).Why a woman as unattractive and as badly built as the appropriately named Dickie would agree to be in a sleazy pornographic scene is even more puzzling than why Chloe Sevigny, Margo Stilley or Kerry Fox would in their respective porn films; at least these women have good looks and/or sex-appeal, as thin an excuse as that may be. Dickie, who is almost portrayed as a femme fatale of sorts what with all those compliments and men chasing her, reminds me of the androgynous Tilda Swinton in the sense that she too is often miscast as a heart-breaker i.e. romantic interest in spite of her all-too-apparent ugliness. I have a feeling that whatever con film-makers were trying to pull on us by trying to convince their viewers that Tilda is sexy, they're trying it again with Dickie. They must think we're a right bunch of morons, huh? Or is it true that the anyway mentally unstable world of cinema-goers has gone mad and blind, as well as stupid. The one thing that Fox, Stilley, Sevigny, and Dickie do have in common though is that they're all airhead actresses who have proved to be pushovers when it comes to being talked into participating in something tasteless, stupid or nasty - "in the name of art", of course. Although, in a sense it's like leading a horse to water; it's not as if these fame-hungry exhibitionists hate being at the center of attention, at any cost and in any way shape or form. I've always said that the only thing that separates most porn starlets from mainstream-film actresses is the pair of knickers that separates their vaginas from the viewer's field of vision."Do it for ART, Dickie," writer/director Andrea Arnold must have pleaded. If only vagina-licking and erections were art, though. If they were, we'd all be artists by now! By injecting pornography into the movie, Andrea has cheapened her product dramatically. RR is a revenge story, a drama about loss and repentance (or what have you), so this need to expose the viewer to such cringe-inducing genital moments is beyond me. Sheer sensationalism, or does Andrea secretly get off on filming her actors touch each others naughty bits? Maybe she's a swinger, or a peeping-tom, and RR provided an opportunity to get her juices going – under the guise of "art". (Don't be so naïve as to believe this impossible.) Or could it be that she is so utterly daft as to have bought into the recent scam that pornography brings much-needed "realism" into mainstream movies – an idea that was all the rage (amongst a select few imbecile film-makers) around the time this movie was made. Not surprisingly, the idea never took off. I still don't see mainstream-"maestro" Spielberg filming porn scenes. Andrea may have managed to rationalize this decision to a bird-faced/bird-brained actress such as Dickie, but she'd be wasting her time with me. She could blab about the "narrative significance" of X-rated vagina/penis action until she's blue in the face (or down there) but it would be futile. In fact, I can't think of a single reason that would justify any "serious" movie – i.e. a "regular" movie – having porn in it. When I want pornography I download it from the net – and with women of real quality; I don't need an Andrea to give me little snippets of it in movies that are supposed to be real stories, as opposed to about two ugly people shagging - erections, vagina-licking and all.Ultimately, all Andrea achieved is churning out a porn flick with too little porn in it, as opposed to a proper movie with a brief sex-scene – which it could/should have been. But why wonder? Andrea is a former Top of the Pops dancer, i.e. a simple-minded naïve buffoon with no class, so her attitude to public displays of sex is probably not dissimilar to that of Ron Jeremy, Linda Lovelace, or any given Brazilian street-corner hooker.But before you start getting the idea that RR was a great movie up until the needless, embarrassing, and pointless XXX scene "ruined" it, let me just stop those thoughts right in their tracks. Andrea gives us almost an HOUR of Dickie spying on Tony Kurrac, heavily testing the viewer's patience, while stretching the movie's already simplistic and thin plot. (RR should have been a 30-minute short.) I found myself restless and a little bored even, wondering how much longer I can take watching Dickie watch Kurrac. RR's overly depressing look doesn't help either; typical kitchen-sink-drama colours, showing Glasgow as if it were Hell itself. This kind of overkill wasn't necessary, regardless of the subject matter. But for film-makers as confused as Andrea, bleakness = realism.The resolution isn't satisfactory. Quite clearly, Andrea has never lost a close relative, let alone a child, to a criminal DUI moron, hence Dickie's surprising and frankly absurd decision to drop the rape charges. This reminded me of America's recent, politically-correct (hence ludicrous) "Victim-Offender Dialog" prison program which is based on some wild, fool-idealistic notion that grieving relatives will feel better once they talk to the people responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. Personally, I believe Dickie should have cut off Kurrac's kurac: that would have been a far more apt conclusion than this fake, let's-all-be-friends, forgive-and-forget left-wing drivel.
runamokprods
Set in Glasgow, a woman who watches closed circuit TV all day for the police gets obsessed with a particular man she believes may be a criminal (shades of Rear Window). She personally starts to track him, wrapping us up in her voyeurism. Gradually, piece by piece, the whys behind the story fall into place, and we are ultimately lead to some very emotional territory. Perhaps the ending twists are a bit pat, or quick, but they worked for me. If Mike Leigh made a Hitchcock film, it might be something like this. (An amazing version of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' over the end credits gave me shivers).
