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I've lost the precise reason why I was interested in seing this - although I need to note that I have not now nor have I ever seen The English Patient but I think we're in the same ballpark. I really wanted to see This is England on a big screen, rather than on a dodgy DVD and given the bus ride to UoK it seemed simple to get there early to ensure a ticket which it turned out wasn't in short supply. We'll leave to one side the curse of the return ticket which is not transferable between two companies. I saw it in the general vicinity of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
peake, brisingamen wisely hiding in the library because of the gruesome bits.
It's based on an Ian McEwan book which has been out for ages although I've not read this one, but even so, here be spoilers.
It's 1935 and we're in the sort of stately pile that belongs in The Draftsman's Contract or Howards End and we seem in deep Merchant Ivory chocolate box territory. There's a dinner party to which the gardener's son Robbie (James McAvoy) is not invited, principally because he's spent three years up at Cambridge not being spoken to by Cecelia (Keira Knightley) which frankly would be a relief (either not being invited or not being spoken to) only they fancy the pants off each other. Robbie drafts various notes to Cecelia but oh-mi-god picks up the wrong one, where he writes about oral pleasuring her in rather more graphic terms. During the dinner party two awfulplot devices twins runaway, and a search party is sent out, the younger daughter of the house Briony Tallis stumbling upon the aftermath of a sexual assault upon the twins' sister, Lola (who wasn't a show girl but clearly was on the way to being one). Naturally Briony blames it on the gardener's son who she clearly fancies and who has actually found the lost twins, poor sap. On such flimsy evidence he is sent to prison, only to be let out to be killed off in the Second World War.
Except... Briony has a vivid imagination. We are shown scenes as she imagines them, and as ... well possibly as they happened, or as she imagined them a second time. The whole is in fact a novel she has written years later, and she has spoken to the people who were really there. Apart from those who have been killed off. She admits to faking scenes. And thus, like Memento and The Usual Suspects it melts away like snow on your tongue. She wasn't there was Robbie wrote his various notes. We only have her word for the one which must have been the smoking gun in the court scene we never see - even with people closing ranks would someone be sent to prison on a smutty note and a girl's say so? Did the version she see exist? Did Robbie and Cecelia really have sex in the library? Is any of the Dunkirk stuff real?
I think it was six minutes into a long take during the Dunkirk scene that I felt really uneasy. [Edit: Apparently it was only four and a half minutes and took five takes. A bit hard on the horss. Pah.][Edit 2: Another source says seven minutes] It was impressive, watching three characters walk along the beach, past horse being shot, onto a band stand, towards an inexplicable Ferris Wheel and finally into a bar on the beach. But it screamed PRODUCTION VALUES. I assume there was a lot of CGI going on, and I suspect it wasn't as continuous as Altman or Hitchcock or Welles were in their efforts. It all seemed a bit MONEY ON THE SCREEN for such a flimsy structure. I should be caring about the characters not the camera work.
The chronology is really dodgy too - the obvious screw up is covered by Briony lying to us, but it's meant to be five years on, but six months ago it was only three and a half years on. That's inflation.
I suspect there are Oscar nominations here - for the two named leads and to be fair in Saoirse Ronan's performance as the young Briony. Perhaps even Brenda Blethyn in a tiny role as Robbie's mother (all the fathers are absent from the film - both Tallis senior and the gardener). But only because this is overblown romance which pretends to be significant and leaves out some vital scenes.
peake, brisingamen wisely hiding in the library because of the gruesome bits.It's based on an Ian McEwan book which has been out for ages although I've not read this one, but even so, here be spoilers.
It's 1935 and we're in the sort of stately pile that belongs in The Draftsman's Contract or Howards End and we seem in deep Merchant Ivory chocolate box territory. There's a dinner party to which the gardener's son Robbie (James McAvoy) is not invited, principally because he's spent three years up at Cambridge not being spoken to by Cecelia (Keira Knightley) which frankly would be a relief (either not being invited or not being spoken to) only they fancy the pants off each other. Robbie drafts various notes to Cecelia but oh-mi-god picks up the wrong one, where he writes about oral pleasuring her in rather more graphic terms. During the dinner party two awful
Except... Briony has a vivid imagination. We are shown scenes as she imagines them, and as ... well possibly as they happened, or as she imagined them a second time. The whole is in fact a novel she has written years later, and she has spoken to the people who were really there. Apart from those who have been killed off. She admits to faking scenes. And thus, like Memento and The Usual Suspects it melts away like snow on your tongue. She wasn't there was Robbie wrote his various notes. We only have her word for the one which must have been the smoking gun in the court scene we never see - even with people closing ranks would someone be sent to prison on a smutty note and a girl's say so? Did the version she see exist? Did Robbie and Cecelia really have sex in the library? Is any of the Dunkirk stuff real?
I think it was six minutes into a long take during the Dunkirk scene that I felt really uneasy. [Edit: Apparently it was only four and a half minutes and took five takes. A bit hard on the horss. Pah.][Edit 2: Another source says seven minutes] It was impressive, watching three characters walk along the beach, past horse being shot, onto a band stand, towards an inexplicable Ferris Wheel and finally into a bar on the beach. But it screamed PRODUCTION VALUES. I assume there was a lot of CGI going on, and I suspect it wasn't as continuous as Altman or Hitchcock or Welles were in their efforts. It all seemed a bit MONEY ON THE SCREEN for such a flimsy structure. I should be caring about the characters not the camera work.
The chronology is really dodgy too - the obvious screw up is covered by Briony lying to us, but it's meant to be five years on, but six months ago it was only three and a half years on. That's inflation.
I suspect there are Oscar nominations here - for the two named leads and to be fair in Saoirse Ronan's performance as the young Briony. Perhaps even Brenda Blethyn in a tiny role as Robbie's mother (all the fathers are absent from the film - both Tallis senior and the gardener). But only because this is overblown romance which pretends to be significant and leaves out some vital scenes.
