This week, I've watched four of the best written and directed films I've seen for some time. My friend leant me the Shane Meadows box set whcih includes TwentyFourSeven, A Room For Romeo Brass, Dead Mans Shoes and This is England. I started the set with Twenty Four Seven, as this was recommended by my friend. The film is Shane Meadow's debut production. Its low-budget black and white content certainly may lack appeal in todays world of film, but the overall effect astonished me, and I found myself hooked to a fanstatic dark comedy.
Twenty Four Seven
The story basically follows some guy who starts a boxing club, to stop drugs and crime in the local area. His hopes and aspires to train a bunch of lads, taken from a rough, lower class council estate, turns into a bunch of friends in a bonding session in the Welsh mountains. Truly fantastic filming without colour. Favourite scene shown below:
haha. makes me laugh everytime:). Fantastic use of the almost fatherly figure Bob Hoskins.
This Is England
The second film I watched was This is England. This film is semi-autobiographical, which I knew before the film so had a greater effect on the way I saw the events portrayed. The film starts with clips of entertainment, news, music, film and fashion in the early eighties. This introduces us into the time frame well and is clearly thought out.
The film uses colour this time, and plenty of it. The vivid blues and greens in the opening scenes combined with some good camera fices on the main characters, create a successful insight into the main characters emotions. Shaun, the main character begins as a lonely figure, no friends and little relations with family. He is an only child, and looks up to the brotherly figures he meets at the beginning of the film. These characters are subtley introduced. Before these guys come along though, I found the loniness well portrayed in the film, as short clips followed Shaun doing things that should ideally be done with the company of friends. For example, riding his bike, playing football or hanging at the park. At this stage of the film, acoustic tracks are played over the footage, to great this sense of secluded isolation.
Later in the film, a major thug character is introduced, whom many of the current friends Shaun has doesnt like. He is a major skinhead, who belives in true British people only. A particular scene stood out, where he is intoroduced, and begins making racial attacks towards Jamaican people, without realising one of Shauns freinds is actually ethenic. As he is saying these things, his voice slowly fades away, and characters are filmed upon individually whilst a soundtrack is played over his speaking. This shows us the uncomfortable state the characters were portrayed as being.
Throughout the film, although we dont find out till the end that Shauns Father died in the Fawklands war, we hear, at numerous stages, radio footage of the events in the war. These are usually when Shaun is on his own, which shows us he is thinking about his Father at these points.
Later in the film, a similar situation is portrayed as earlier, bt the other way around, where the black character is talking about his family and fellow blacks. The thug character this time is the one with music playing over his thoughts.
Finally, as the film draws to a conclusion, we see flicking scenes between Shaun throwing an St. Georges Flag to see with the unity of families with soldiers at the end of the war. Again my favourite scene is shown below (I dont agree with the racism at all, but when you watch the film it is knot portrayed as being a good thing. In fact its portrayed as insanity):
Dead Mans Shoes
Yesterday afternoon after dinner, I sat down to the next in the four films, Dead man's Shoes. This was my favourite of the four films, as it used some fantastic plot twists and filming techniques.
Much like This is England, Dead man's Shoes begins with real life baby footage of the two main characters, Richard and his brother. It flicks between this footage, and the footage of Richard walking through fields with his brother as young men. Like Twenty Four Seven, there is a small amount of narration from the lead character.
Throughout the film, a fantastic use of black and white flashbacks, to reveal what has happened to cause this brothers anger at these men.
These clips above are my favourite, portraying Richard as an aggressive, scary character.
I dont think theres a moment in this film I didnt enjoy, as the characters emotions and fellings are portrayed to give the audience an insight into the world of Richard. Revealed at the end is that his brother was actually killed by these men, and when we see him in earlier stages, he isnt actually there, but is an illusion in Richards mind.
The flashbacks of Anthonys life are shown above. The use of the gas mask is well scary and evokes fear, everytime he is seen.
I also noted about the drug overdose part of the film, where the filming is in chaos cam, and blurred, as if in first person of theose who had been drugged. This is fantastic, using distorted audio and flicking between the sober Richard to these proper gone druggies. He then kills them all :).
A Room For Romeo Brass
Finally, last night I watched the Film a Room For Romeo Brass. Like This is England, the filming was bright, had a pleasent start, but developed from this into a tragic plot of two friends plaing around with a very lonely but violent mid aged male. The same guy who played Richard in Dead mans Shoes (Paddy Considine), plays a very different role in this film as a slow, uncanny character, with a very short temper and no cause for thought. At the start of the film he is really funny, but as he develops an obsession with Romeos sister, he becomes angry and outraged that she doesnt want to get with him.
The use of light and dark filming, creates a mood in which the audience can follow, and also some what of a hatred for the characters in the bad of this film. The relationship between the two original friends is portrayed very successfully, and equal filming of each of their lives, flicking between them, allows us to see both ways of their thinking.
Again brilliant use of audio and soundtrack in this film.
My favourite scene:
Absolutly loved these films!!!!! Watch them...!
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