A rarity for me here, a British film actually making my top
10 favourite films of a year list and while there are still the elements of
British Cinema that I’ve grown to hate present in The Selfish Giant, I couldn’t
help but fall in love with this movie that tells the tale of the friendship
between two young outcast teenagers. It is the strong bond between the pair
that has been written so delicately and with such charm and affection by Clio
Barnard that really sold the film for me; Each time Connor Chapman (Arbor) and
Shaun Thomas (Swifty) share the same screen space you can’t help but smile due
to the wonderful chemistry that the pair seem to have together. The film has a
washed out look to it, which is probably there to magnify the feeling of
bleakness and despair of the working-class and whilst the approach to
portraying the so called ‘Working-Class’ in British Cinema still doesn’t sit
right with myself, I never felt that this was overly emphasized within The
Selfish Giant, for me the film feels very similar to the works of Ken Loach. Though
the films villain ‘Kitten’ a dodgy scrapyard worker, feels a little two
dimensional – he is still evil to the core and utterly disgusting which really
helps to give the film an extra level to the challenge for which the two young
boy’s friendship is tested upon as the story develops. The film does suffer
from having multiple endings and whilst I’d have much preferred the film to end
a good 10-15mins prior to the credits, you can certainly see what the
writer/director’s thought process was for their choice in ending; overall
though the film is laugh out loud funny, charming and at times harrowing and a
shining light that British Cinema has been lacking for so many years.
No. 6 Worst - Blue Jasmine dir Woody Allen
Now I’ve seen that Blue Jasmine has featured on many critics
lists as being one of the best films of 2013 and I wouldn’t be surprised to see
this film do extremely well going into the Awards season, but I for one am
calling ‘bullshit’ on this; since when did so many critics out there become
blinkered ‘fanboys’ of any director’s work, willing to lay down lauds of praise
onto a film that is just outright awful. I think it’s very telling that all the
positive talk for Blue Jasmine begins with the performance of Cate Blanchett;
give credit where credit is due, I’ll admit that she does perform wonders on
screen within her role, but that doesn’t cover up the fact that the
script/screenplay is one of the worst I’ve seen play out on the big screen in
quite a few years. Blue Jasmine is chock full of underdeveloped caricatured
working class characters for which I find Woody Allen’s lazy and neglectful
incompetence research at how the ‘working class’ actually live and behave to
really be rather offensive; the character of Jasmine is also one of the most
hideous human beings in film for a number of years and while it’s not
impossible to connect with negative/bad characters in film, it’s not possible
in Blue Jasmine purely down to how badly this film is written, its totally
unbelievable and laugh out loud preposterous in terms of the way characters act
and talk, and after only a short time
the film left my head pounding with anger at how amateurish this film felt. The
screenshot of Jasmine above really depicts quite well my state whilst enduring
such a bloated and ill-advised film Woody Allen has directed this year. To say
that I hated this film wouldn’t be an understatement at all, this is one of
those films that I really regretted watching and certainly will not be viewing
again any time soon, in fact ever.
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