Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 261: Tue Sep 18

The Moon and the Sledgehammer (Trevelyan, 1971) & Treacle Jr (Thraves, 2010):
Portobello Pop-Up Cinema, under the Westway, Acklam Rd, Ladbroke Grove
This is the first in a series of double-bills at Portobello Pop-Up pairing classic films with great low-budget British movies.

Time Out review of The Moon and the Sledgehammer:
'Engaging documentary about an eccentric family (old man, two sons, two daughters) living wild in a tumbledown house in the Sussex woods and doing their own thing (mainly music and tinkering with steam engines and other ancient machinery). Their lifestyle, expounded in fascinatingly wayward conversation which is allowed to make its own pace, embodies a weird cautionary logic about the miracles of modern technocracy.' Tom Milne
Here is the trailer.

Time Out review of Treacle Jr:
"An electric performance by Aidan Gillen (reteaming with director Jamie Thraves for the first time since 2000’s ‘The Low Down’) is the cornerstone of this blackly funny but ultimately heartrending essay on loneliness and dependence that mixes the tender treatment of dysfunction of 'Rain Man' with the bleak urban redemption of ‘The Fisher King’. For reasons known only to himself, architect Tom (Tom Fisher) has abandoned his young family and taken to the streets of an anonymous south London where he forms a halting friendship with Gillen’s rambling half-witted naïf. As their bond deepens – thanks in part to a kitten named Treacle Jr – the story gravitates toward a conclusion that’s as hard won as it is inescapable. Funny, touching and gritty, this coolly rendered observation on need and rejection really is a Brit drama to shout about." Adam Lee-Davies
Here is the trailer.

Director Jamie Thraves has made three critically acclaimed movies but has yet to have a breakthrough hit. He started with The Low Down (2000), a tale of Bohemian Londoners at the crossroads both in their personal and work lives which the Observer named among the "neglected masterpieces" of film history  in its rundown of 50 Lost Movie Classics.

He then made The Cry Of The Owl (2009), an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's psychological thriller made in conjunction with BBC Films which had a limited release in this country but which again garnered excellent reviews. Here is John Gibbs' detailed take in the new web version of the influential Movie film journal.

Treacle Jr, which Thraves funded by mortgaging his house, got an airing at the 2010 London Film Festival. The reports back from the LFF were very positive and this film has a devoted following.

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