Released in 2013 and shot in black and white, the film evokes French New Wave. With its slow, lingering camera shots, minimal, restrained dialogue, it evokes a feeling of moodiness and anxiety. In this way it’s kind of existential piece, although expressed differently from ‘Locke’. The two characters, Ida, a noviate nun meets up with her only surviving relative, an Aunt who deals with her problems via drink and sex. A strong and interesting contrast to her niece which, with the introduction of a jazz saxophonist, can only lead to a complex interplay between the characters. The film is not Hollywood, there’s no trickery but there is a depth of analysis of the human...
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Like or not like the film, doesn’t really cut the mustard. It’s fascinating, appalling, obscene, decadent. Three hours of sex, drugs and rock’n roll, a savage critique of traders and their mentality. A study in alienation and pyschopathy, it’s autobiographical. What makes such people tick? Money, power, possessions. By the end of the film I was glued to the seat, waiting for his downfall. I was pleased by the end result: he was well and truly screwed. A dog eat dog scenario but like Dracula such men rise again to continue exploiting the greedy and vulnerable. Brilliant...
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Another film by McQueen who doesn’t shy away from the difficult areas of life. He chooses actors who have the ability to translate his passion for the truth into gut wrenching characterisation. The captured slave, the brutal sadistic slave master, the traumatised young black woman broken by life. McQueen’s genius is to portray the endurance of the human spirit without sentiment or superficiality. The film ranks in terms of his courage to confront the politics of oppression with the portrayal of Bobby Sands’s death in ‘Hunger’; both are historically significant.
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A man in an existential crisis brilliantly acted by Tom Hardy. He drives alone late at night along the motorway, contemplating where his loyalties and duties lie. At the same time he imagines himself speaking with his dead father who persecuted and criticised him, and through internal dialogue and actual conversations over the phone , Locke struggles to become true to himself without losing his personal integrity. The film is beautifully shot and atmospheric, intense, clever, gripping and highly recommended.
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Marguerite Valentine is a former child protection specialist now writing psychological thrillers. Her debut novel is 'Between The Shadow And The Soul'.