Post by Capo on May 22, 2007 16:35:48 GMT
This Is England
Shane Meadows 2006 UK
England, 1983: a 12-year-old boy is recruited into the skinhead reggae scene, but tension arises when a racist skinhead returns from prison.
An expansion upon A Room for Romeo Brass (and this is his most autobiographical film since that film), early on - in fact as early as the credits and opening establishing shots - it has an air of obviousness about it; one might be forgiven for groans of "It's not going to be like this, is it?" It gets better, though, even if Meadows is a decent storyteller at best, and a lazy one at worst - whenever he hits a narrative pitfall, he'll use a montage sequence to some sort of acoustic tune (predictable way of evoking some emotion and sense of time lapse), and the ending is almost insulting. But whatever of story-telling deficiencies, this is his most ambitious film yet, a multi-threaded tale of literal gang-culture and political allegory (it covers the Falklands War and immigration at a time of endless and futile efforts in Iraq), and does so in psychologically and morally complex ways. These two levels of narrative are weaved together by a third, the contrived but excellently-performed father-son relationship between the film's young protagonist and the older gang-leader and would-be nationalist. And if it's a messy 100 minutes or so, it is not without moments as explosive, powerful and intense as anything Dead Man's Shoes had to offer. That film's star, Paddy Considine, is absent here, but in his place is Stephen Graham, whose performance is nothing short of staggering; he steals all the film's best moments - his first scene proper, in which he tells of his time in jail with racist abandon; giving a speech on immigrants and the government and the Falklands; when he explodes into fury upon an underling who asks him if he really believes in "all this shit"; an attack on an Asian corner shop; a subtler moment of half-convincing affection; and he's completely convincing as a torn psychopath in the climax. Meadows is incredible at evoking tension and portraying power struggles, and he is at his best when he is simply showing several men in one place with their egos threatened by other forces.
Shane Meadows 2006 UK
England, 1983: a 12-year-old boy is recruited into the skinhead reggae scene, but tension arises when a racist skinhead returns from prison.
An expansion upon A Room for Romeo Brass (and this is his most autobiographical film since that film), early on - in fact as early as the credits and opening establishing shots - it has an air of obviousness about it; one might be forgiven for groans of "It's not going to be like this, is it?" It gets better, though, even if Meadows is a decent storyteller at best, and a lazy one at worst - whenever he hits a narrative pitfall, he'll use a montage sequence to some sort of acoustic tune (predictable way of evoking some emotion and sense of time lapse), and the ending is almost insulting. But whatever of story-telling deficiencies, this is his most ambitious film yet, a multi-threaded tale of literal gang-culture and political allegory (it covers the Falklands War and immigration at a time of endless and futile efforts in Iraq), and does so in psychologically and morally complex ways. These two levels of narrative are weaved together by a third, the contrived but excellently-performed father-son relationship between the film's young protagonist and the older gang-leader and would-be nationalist. And if it's a messy 100 minutes or so, it is not without moments as explosive, powerful and intense as anything Dead Man's Shoes had to offer. That film's star, Paddy Considine, is absent here, but in his place is Stephen Graham, whose performance is nothing short of staggering; he steals all the film's best moments - his first scene proper, in which he tells of his time in jail with racist abandon; giving a speech on immigrants and the government and the Falklands; when he explodes into fury upon an underling who asks him if he really believes in "all this shit"; an attack on an Asian corner shop; a subtler moment of half-convincing affection; and he's completely convincing as a torn psychopath in the climax. Meadows is incredible at evoking tension and portraying power struggles, and he is at his best when he is simply showing several men in one place with their egos threatened by other forces.
