Mandy (Mackendrick, 1952): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.35pm
This film (which also screens on September 28th) is is part of the Martin Scorsese's Hidden gems of British Cinema season at BFI Southbank. Details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Alexander Mackendrick was chiefly known for his wry comedies (The Man in the White Suit, Whisky Galore);
this 1952 film was one of his rare forays into drama, and it shows him
the master of an understated but highly charged style. What seems at
first a typical problem drama of the period—a mother’s attempts to
secure some kind of education for her deaf daughter—is revealed as only
the central image in a more general evocation of the failures of
communication in the British family structure. The vivid performances
Mackendrick elicits from his players (Phyllis Calvert, Mandy Miller)
combine with a subjective camera style to create one of the few
emotionally demanding experiences in the British cinema. With Jack
Hawkins and Terence Morgan; retitled Crash of Silence in the U.S.
Dave Kehr
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