Post by Capo on Nov 30, 2005 21:25:14 GMT
Vera Drake
Director: Mike Leigh
2004 UK/France
1950s London, pre-Abortion Act. Vera Drake lives with her husband and two children and is popular with the neighbours. She also gives out abortions to young ladies requesting them. When one goes wrong, the police are on her trail, leading to tragedy for her and the family.
For all the smiles and cups of tea and “Dears” in Mike Leigh’s period piece Vera Drake, there remains throughout the film a kind of unlovely atmosphere, an ambiguous distrust among characters and between the audience and the film itself. Leigh’s camera lurks on faces for longer than we would expect, perhaps too long for comfort, and it creates a (unintentional?) feeling of paranoia or, in retrospect, of darker things to come.
In the first half of the film, Leigh shows Vera as a kind and thoughtful woman if not an overly caring one. She doesn’t take money for her abortions, but nor does she stay around longer than she has to. One scene in particular, in which a Negro immigrant breaks down in uncertainty of what will happen, only for Vera to leave with no more than a few reassuring (only to herself) words, underlines the character with a hidden depth for which we must read between the lines and find our own conclusions. In the latter parts of the film, Staunton comes into her own, helped by Leigh’s intense, intimate camera work, which is emphasised all the more so with the absence of music. Staunton is at once a distressed, honest woman trying to come to terms with the law which has caught up with her.
1950 London is recreated in as much loving detail as you’d expect; an admirable job, since not many locations remain which could pass today for the period in which the film is set. Production designer Eve Stewart really has gone to work for this tightly budgeted film. The wallpapers, carpets, chairs and clothes are fittingly patterned with unmatching flower designs, embedding the cast in a claustrophobic mise-en-scène; the exteriors are few and far between, which further encloses Vera et al. in their own sheltered world.
Mike Leigh’s direction confronts the audience with a moral dilemma: an abortionist brought to justice seventeen years before abortion was legalised. However detailed the film is, Leigh’s visual approach is dull, and none the worse for that. If in the latter stages it gets overbearing on a visual level, you can’t help but admire the non-judgemental approach: instead, the director raises questions and never even thinks about answers. In the earlier parts of the film, the camera remains static, with many characters crammed into frame. By the end, with Vera facing jail, the family, falling apart in their grim acceptance of their near futures, cannot bring themselves to sit or stand with the same social intimacy as before, and so the camera is forced to pan around room, capturing a real sense of increasing distance and loss of hope. Combined with Dick Pope’s necessarily dreary photography, the film is a nostalgic one, of times past and never to come again, its plodding slowness accentuated by its draining duration.
CREDITS
Director[/b]
Mike Leigh
Producer
Simon Channing-Williams
Screenplay
Mike Leigh
Director of Photography
Dick Pope
Film Editing
Jim Clark
Production Design
Eve Stewart
Original Score
Andrew Dickson
CAST
Imelda Staunton[/b]
Vera Drake
Richard Graham
George
Eddie Marsan
Reg
Anna Kaveaney
Nellie
Alex Kelly
Ethel
Daniel Mays
Sid
Phil Davis
Stan
Peter Wight
Detective Inspector Webster
Martin Savage
Detective Sergeant Vickers[/size]
Director: Mike Leigh
2004 UK/France
1950s London, pre-Abortion Act. Vera Drake lives with her husband and two children and is popular with the neighbours. She also gives out abortions to young ladies requesting them. When one goes wrong, the police are on her trail, leading to tragedy for her and the family.
For all the smiles and cups of tea and “Dears” in Mike Leigh’s period piece Vera Drake, there remains throughout the film a kind of unlovely atmosphere, an ambiguous distrust among characters and between the audience and the film itself. Leigh’s camera lurks on faces for longer than we would expect, perhaps too long for comfort, and it creates a (unintentional?) feeling of paranoia or, in retrospect, of darker things to come.
In the first half of the film, Leigh shows Vera as a kind and thoughtful woman if not an overly caring one. She doesn’t take money for her abortions, but nor does she stay around longer than she has to. One scene in particular, in which a Negro immigrant breaks down in uncertainty of what will happen, only for Vera to leave with no more than a few reassuring (only to herself) words, underlines the character with a hidden depth for which we must read between the lines and find our own conclusions. In the latter parts of the film, Staunton comes into her own, helped by Leigh’s intense, intimate camera work, which is emphasised all the more so with the absence of music. Staunton is at once a distressed, honest woman trying to come to terms with the law which has caught up with her.
1950 London is recreated in as much loving detail as you’d expect; an admirable job, since not many locations remain which could pass today for the period in which the film is set. Production designer Eve Stewart really has gone to work for this tightly budgeted film. The wallpapers, carpets, chairs and clothes are fittingly patterned with unmatching flower designs, embedding the cast in a claustrophobic mise-en-scène; the exteriors are few and far between, which further encloses Vera et al. in their own sheltered world.
Mike Leigh’s direction confronts the audience with a moral dilemma: an abortionist brought to justice seventeen years before abortion was legalised. However detailed the film is, Leigh’s visual approach is dull, and none the worse for that. If in the latter stages it gets overbearing on a visual level, you can’t help but admire the non-judgemental approach: instead, the director raises questions and never even thinks about answers. In the earlier parts of the film, the camera remains static, with many characters crammed into frame. By the end, with Vera facing jail, the family, falling apart in their grim acceptance of their near futures, cannot bring themselves to sit or stand with the same social intimacy as before, and so the camera is forced to pan around room, capturing a real sense of increasing distance and loss of hope. Combined with Dick Pope’s necessarily dreary photography, the film is a nostalgic one, of times past and never to come again, its plodding slowness accentuated by its draining duration.
CREDITS
Director[/b]
Mike Leigh
Producer
Simon Channing-Williams
Screenplay
Mike Leigh
Director of Photography
Dick Pope
Film Editing
Jim Clark
Production Design
Eve Stewart
Original Score
Andrew Dickson
CAST
Imelda Staunton[/b]
Vera Drake
Richard Graham
George
Eddie Marsan
Reg
Anna Kaveaney
Nellie
Alex Kelly
Ethel
Daniel Mays
Sid
Phil Davis
Stan
Peter Wight
Detective Inspector Webster
Martin Savage
Detective Sergeant Vickers[/size]