is anyone getting/going to see Red Road by Andrea Arnold?

 

heard lotsa good stuff about this film and how she could become the UK's answer to Moodyson, Haneke and von Trier. Actually this film has come about from another one of Lars von Trier funny rules thingys (like the dude who had to make his short film like five times in a dump in india, and as a one second per shot thingy :lol: ).

 

this time he's thought up the idea where the same set of characters (devised by Anders Thomas Jensen and Lone Scherfig), will end up in 3 different films all made by different people not knowing what the others up to.

 

its gonna be a bit like the Lucas Belvaux triolgy or three colours thing, but not quite!!!

 

 

Plot Outline: Jackie (Kate Dickie) works as a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze. One day a man appears on her monitor, a man she thought she would never see again, a man she never wanted to see again. Now she has no choice, she is compelled to confront him

I'm going to see this tomorrow. It sounds like a pretty good, unusual concept... I quite like the sound of this film as well, a commentary on our growing "Big Brother" society where one day our every move will captured on CCTV... Brings in the whole idea of Jeremy Bentham's concept of the 'Panopticon' - a prison system based on a central point where the guards would be able to see every inmate... Bentham's whole theory for my mind has been borne out by the creation of our 'surveillance society'. The powers that be claim that CCTV is there to prevent crime or solve, but I'm growing incredibly suspicious of how it's being used and who it's being used by and for what purpose....

 

I'm hoping "Red Road" is going to tackle all these sorts of issues...

I'm going to see this tomorrow. It sounds like a pretty good, unusual concept...

 

yeah man i like these leftfield concept type of things. have you seen The Five Obstructions. i can just imagine Lars sat in his Zentropa offices somewhere just outside Copenhagen thinking what new set of rules can i invent?

 

be good to see all the films once they have all been completed.

 

im guessing that you will have that Krzysztof Kieslowski Three Colours collection in your set of films. thats another similar set of films that i want to see (i've seen the ferry boat ending on one of those best 100 great film shows things, but i dont think that will ruin all the films for me)

 

 

I'm hoping "Red Road" is going to tackle all these sorts of issues...

 

well its got a full 5 stars in the independent, thats like the first film ever to do so from anthony quinn (i think) he like so only gives 1 and 2s normally :lol:

 

heres the review:

 

Red Road (18)

Reviewed by Anthony Quinn

Published: 27 October 2006

Red Road is the location of a monstrous concrete high-rise in a rough part of Glasgow where writer-director Andrea Arnold's superb debut unfolds. Crime is endemic to this neighbourhood, whose streets CCTV operator Jackie (Kate Dickie) monitors on cameras for a private security firm. Nursing an unspecified grief, Jackie keeps loneliness at bay, just, with unsatisfying and irregular spurts of adultery. One night she spots the face of a man named Clyde (Tony Curran) on her screens; she knows he has just been released from prison, though not until the end do we discover his crime. Quietly, she tracks him on camera, then takes to stalking him in person. She can't understand how this jailbird seems to have moved on with his life while she's stuck in hers.

 

Not the least impressive aspect of this study in rage and remorse is the authority Arnold brings to the setting: late-night Glasgow, with its menace yet odd grace notes of kinship, is compellingly drawn, as are the two waifs (Martin Compston and Natalie Press) who attach themselves to Clyde. Arnold's engagement with the moral pitfalls of surveillance puts you in mind of other movies, including Rear Window, The Conversation, even Michael Haneke's recent Hidden.

 

Yet however various her influences Arnold has made a movie that's her own. It's also honestly sexual without being prurient or self-regarding. Dickie, with her tragic face, and Curran give outstanding performances, and deserve every award that comes their way. As does this film, the best made in Britain this year.