Dead Man's Shoes (Meadows, 2005): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.10pm
This is part of the 'Acting Hard' season at BFI Southbank, which explores representations of working-class masculinity in British cinema from the Thatcher era to the present day.
Time Out review:
With his autistic brother at his shoulder, accompanied by the wistful
strum of Smog’s ‘Vessel in Vain’ and cine-cam childhood memories, Paddy Considine’s
grizzly wayfarer wends his way down fields and country lanes in the
preamble to Meadows’ latest rummage through English small-time masculine
values; the pastoral tranquility barely ruffled by the steady purpose
of his stride. It’s a nonchalant image that only retrospectively
conjures the ghosts of Harry Dean Stanton emerging from the desert in
‘Paris, Texas’, Clint riding into town in ‘High Plains Drifter’, or even
the homecomings of Hamlet or Richard Lionheart… Something is rotten in a
Midlands village, though from initial appearances it runs no deeper
than the petty drug-dealing, porn and Pot Noodles that characterise the
lives of local goons Herbie, Soz, Tuff and Sonny. Considine busts their
chops, steals their stash and daubs taunts on their walls before they
have time to figure out who he could be; even when they do, they don’t
realise quite how scared they should be. A gritted antithesis to ‘Once Upon a Time in the Midlands’, Meadows’
and co-writer Considine’s stripped-down revenge drama similarly
transposes western archetypes to the modest back-cloth of their local
manor, but to much more serious intent: male fecklessness is viewed
through a far darker lens, and redemption is in short supply. It’s a
fascinating project, in terms of both its technique and ambition, and
gloriously watchable: working with a young cinematographer (Danny Cohen)
and a triumvirate of editors, Meadows has raised his visual craft to
the level of his dexterity with actors, while Considine is as striking
as lightning.
Nick Bradshaw
Here (and above) is the trailer.
No comments:
Post a Comment