This weeks Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club showing
was a British Prison drama with the tag line ‘we are all different on the inside’. Prison is how society attempts to deter violence: the
prospect of being locked up behind a big wall is supposed to be the cure-all.
But what deters the violence of people already in prison with little or no hope
of release for a very long time and share space with fellow inmates that could
possible have worse anger management problems than there own? Or are these men actually
in a prison of their own making?
We have recently seen various films on this subject
including the gripping Danish prison-drama ‘R’
(2010), the French A Prophet (2009) If
I Want To Whistle, I Whistle (2010) a Rumanian film about a young
offenders institution or Steve McQueen’s directorial debut film Hunger (2008) which dramatized
the events in the Maze Prison, 6 weeks prior to Bobby Sands death and the
violence that surrounded that incident. But
the film that cast’s the longest shadow over the British prison genre is
probable Alan Clarke’s Scum banned by
the BBC in 1977 and two years later Clark remade it as a feature film. And of
course under the British New Wave banner we had Tony Richardson’s The
Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), which covered such
subjects as class-consciousness and the incarceration of rebellious youth.
Starred Up is a 2013 British ‘family drama’ set inside a prison,
which gives you that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach from the very
start. The title is a term used to describe the early transfer of a criminal
from a Young Offender’s Institution to an adult prison. 19-year-old Eric Love is transferred into an adult prison two
years early after proving too violent for a young offenders' institution. A
potentially explosive situation is not made easier by the fact that one of the
top dog’s in Eric's new digs is also the man he holds to blame for his violent
tendencies. Interestingly the
screenplay for this film has been written by a psychotherapist, Jonathan Asser
and is based on his experiences working as a voluntary
therapist at HM Prison Wandsworth, with some of the country’s most
violent criminals all of which had anger management problems.
24-year-old Jack
O'Connell stars as Eric. An actor that served his apprenticeship in such films
as This is England[1]
his debut film in 2006, Eden Lake
(2008) Harry Brown (2009) and
recently in The
Liability (2012) and Tower
Block (2012). Neville Love,
Eric’s father, is played by Australian born actor Ben Mendelsohn, who you may know from Australia (2008) Beautiful
Kate (2009) Animal
Kingdom (2010) Killer
Elite (2011) Trespass
(2011) Killing
Them Softly (2012) The
Place Beyond the Pines (2012). The prison’s voluntary
therapist, a surrogate Jonathan Asser, is
portrayed with some panache by Rupert Friend[2]
the English born actor who is best known for his role in the American TV series
Homeland where he plays the character
Peter Quinn.
Directed by David
Mackenzie[3] who is probable best
known for Young Adam (2003) a movie
set in Scotland and staring Ewan McGregor, Emily Mortimer, Peter Mullan and
Tilda Swinton - a film about sex, death and barges. His latest movie was based, but not set, in Northern Ireland in two former
prisons HM Prison Crumlin Road in Belfast and HM Prison
Maze in Lisburn. The budget was around 2 million and it took 24 days
to shoot the film. So far it has won the following awards: The British
Independent Film Awards for Ben Mendelsohn Best Supporting Actor, the Dublin
International Film Festival gave Jack O’Connell Best Actor and the London Film
Awards recognised Jonathan Asser for Best
British Newcomer.
The film has been well
received by the critics and the description’s I particularly agreed with were “Intense, visceral and immersive”[4]. ‘Jack O’Connell is dangerously riveting, scary, tragic, explosive an
actor you can’t take your eyes off’[5].
And I would add that O’Connell is blossoming into a first class actor and
that the director certainly impresses with his feel for realism and successfully
shocks his audience with the unflinching brutality of prison life. Ken
Loach asked recently if the best films have a significance beyond there own
narrative I would say in the case of this movie that the answer would have to
be yes.
The discussion following the screening centered on
whether our young protagonist would ever become ‘rehabilitated’ the audience
seemed pretty much split down the middle over this question. The prison system
in general was discussed and also how in Scotland the crime level has been reduced
in all but violent acts and sex crimes! The question was raised about the
authenticity of the movie, most agreed that it felt genuine but had some
trepidation about the ‘hanging’ scene. Our audience all agreed that Mackenzie
and his cast and crew were all to be commended on producing a very tough and
accomplished film.
[2] English film actor,
writer and director, who is best known for his roles as Mr Wickham in the 2005
film Pride and Prejudice, Lieutenant Kurt Kotler in the 2008 film The
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and Prince Albert in the 2009
film The Young Victoria. He currently plays Peter Quinn
in Showtime's multiple Emmy Award-winning television drama, Homeland.
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