I found this film upsetting for all the wrong reasons. The set-up suggested a sad and squalid story told straight, but it came across instead as a sordid one manipulated for its shock value, stylistically as clever as Stephen's portrait with mobile phones in the poster.
5 comments:
I agree, the whole time I was watching it I kept thinking why would anyone think anyone would want to watch this and then complete manipulation at the end. Offensive on so many levels
Um, so does that mean the portrait is clever or not clever? Cos I was thinking it was kinda cool...
that's up to you, Imagine. they've gone for a choppy mix of Super8 and mobile phone footage along with documentary-style stuff in rewind, stills and slowed-down form for the interviews with Sharon, and then more conventional camerawork for Stephen's bits.
it's innovative, but i thought they overused it to ill effect. i think it made it seem immature, which didn't help with the overall schlocky horror impression it made on me.
it got four-star reviews from Sinéad Gleeson, Gavin Burke and Donald Clarke, all of whom i'd lay great store by, and i just can't understand what they saw in it.
Clarke went so far as to describe the sex scene with Mick Lally as an outburst of grim humour - i thought the same scene was utterly horrifying. had the genders been reversed, i.e. had a sober man in his late thirties picked up an incoherently drunk and shambling woman in her late sixties in a chipper, taken her home, told her to take her clothes off, fucked her joylessly while smoking a fag and then thrown her clothes in her face while he screamed at her to get out of his flat, i don't think it would be seen as grim humour. though that might just be me.
all through watching it i felt i must be missing something. i've since gone back and reread reviews and interviews to try and find what that might be, but i've so far drawn a blank.
I just wanted to say that I love your film reviews. So direct and expressive.
thanks, Lucie! everyone else hates them.
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