Couple in a Hole.

Deep in the middle of a French forest an apparently normal and affluent middle class couple live under the base of a fallen tree. John forages for food trying to keep both him and his wife Karen alive, both shun modern conveniences and other people. Why are they living in these squalid circumstances, what has driven them to live this feral existence?

 

Kate Dickie as Karen....

The film stars Scottish actors Paul Higgins as John with Kate Dickie, who along with director and writer Tom Geens were in attendance at the screening of the movie at this years Glasgow Film Festival to take part in a Q&A, playing the part of Karen. The other two actors involved in this four hander are Jerome Kircher as Andre and Corinne Masiero who plays his wife Celine.

 

....withPaul Higgins as her husband John. 

Tom Geens told us that the strange premise for Couple in a Hole (2015) was built up over a long period of time. Kate Dickie explained that she was drawn to the part of Karen because she felt it was a great love story - albeit different from your standard Mills and Boon idea of romance - where a husband looks after his mentally ill wife whose trauma has been brought on by the death of a child in tragic circumstances. Karen has forced John to live this animal type existence with the couple living live out what can only be described as  ‘nature documentary’ with you the audience being invited to observe their strange world. Karen can't live in the real world without her son but John begins to realise that he can't go on living like this and he starts to forge a relationship with a local farmer.

 

Kate and Director Tom Geens at the GFF2016.

This is an intense film and as Kate explained it was a physically difficult acting experience including having to loose a lot of weight and to go without food during the shoot which went on for a longer period than expected because Paul Higgins broke his ankle during the early part of the filming. Geens has drawn great performances from his actors especially Dickie and Higgins with the film maintaining its own distinct look and sound. My only small grumble is the slightly intrusive soundtrack that rears up from time to time. This film certainly deserved a general release allowing it to be enjoyed by a wider audience than these found on the festival circuit.

Filth.

Its not often that a film goes on general release in Scotland before it does in the rest of the UK, at least not before Independence next September, but that’s what happened with Filth (2013) a British crime comedy-drama written and directed by Jon S Baird and based on Irvine Welsh’s third novel of the same name published in 1998. This is Baird’s second feature film after 2008’s Cass the true story of a former football hooligan who became a writer. I suppose that this new film is also about a thug but this time he is a member of the police force!

The nice policeman teaches the wee man some sign language. 

The problems associated with self loathing seems to appear in many of the movies I have watched recently and raises its psychiatric head once more in this every day story of a bigoted, corrupt and substance abusing alcoholic Edinburgh based Scottish Detective, a sort of over the top John Rebus who hates himself to such a degree that he makes nearly every body’s life a misery he comes into contact with.

Obviously part of the investigatiom!

This terrific piece of story telling is the bastard offspring of a three way cinematic shag between Clockwork Orange (1971), Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant (1992) and Trainspotting (1996) and comprises some of the cream of British acting including Joanne Froggatt, Shirley Henderson, Kate Dickie, Eddie Marsan, Jim Broadbent, Martin Compston, Garry Lewis and John Sessions to name but a few. But even in this exhorted company James McAvoy stands out as the bipolar junkie, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson who when asked by his superior why he joined the police force he replied ‘polices oppression’ ‘did you want to stamp it out from the inside?’ ‘No’ replies Robertson ‘I wanted to be part of it’ which really sums up the character.  

Now there's a man who's not always in control?

It’s a movie that will no doubt divide audiences. As Peter Bradshaw remarked in his critique it amounts to Acid Rain on Leith, but thankfully there’s not a sign of a dance routine although we do get a song from David Soul!

For Those in Peril.

Director:	Paul Wright
Country:	UK
Year:	2013
Running Time:	93 mins
Principle Cast:	George MacKay	Aaron
	Kate Dickie	Cathy
	Nichola Burley	Jane
	Michael Smiley	Jane’s Father

with Kate Dickie.

Following the screening of director Paul Wright’s impressive debut feature film I asked him if when he wrote the story he had based any of it on the Solway Harvester disaster, a scallop dredger from Kirkcudbright Scotland which sank off the coast of the Isle of Man in heavy storms on 11^th January 2000 loosing all seven crew members, as his film had brought this terrible tragedy to mind. His answer was that he knew nothing about this sinking until after he had completed the screenplay. Later when talking to Kate Dickie, who comes from Newton Stewart, she told me it was her that brought the similarity between the real life incident and the movie to Wrights attention.

Kate with Michael Smiley and a young 'Aaron'

Working along side his brother Michael on the fishing boats had been a dream for Aaron. When he finally gets his wish tragedy strikes and the boat claims the lives of five crewmembers including his brother. The only survivor is Aaron who cannot remember what happened. He refuses to believe that his brother and the other crew members are really dead and that some how the local legend of the sea monster, that was told to him as a young boy, has come true and if he can get back to sea he can, some how, rescue them and bring them back alive.  Gradually the village folk turn against him, their animosity towards him driving him to feel ever more alienated. Suffocated by his own anguish the only support he gets is from his mother Cathy and Michaels grieving girlfriend Jane.

 

The talented Paul Wright.

Originally premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival its UK premiere was the first time most of the cast had actually seen the film. Also in attendance were families from the coastal fishing village of Gourdon in Aberdeenshire where the film was shot on location.

The fractured narrative and the various film formats added to the darkness that’s always involved with the mysteries and the power of the sea.  Images, the director stated, was his main motivation along with the story’s he heard as a child living by the sea. Mention must be made of the films young lead George MacKay whose portrayal of the anguish and torment that possesses Aaron is powerfully believable and the backbone of Wrights movie with Kate Dickie giving her normal assured performance as Aarons mother. The premiere's Q&A finished with a promise by Scotsman Paul Wright that he was more than happy to continue to make films in his home country but with the skill he has shown in making this movie the attraction could be there for him to move further a field to practice his filmmaking trade: lets hope he doesn’t.

Shell.

At this weeks Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club we where fortunate to have in attendance David Smith one of the producers of Shell (2012) and Managing Director of the production company Brocken Spectre based in Scotland. Regular visitors to the RBC may remember the original short film version of Shell (2007)  and you may also remember another short film Native Son (2010) that was also produced by David and shown here in September 2010. The director and writer of both these very well received short films, Aberdeen born Scot Graham, has now expanded Shell into a full-length feature film. It was nominated for three awards at the 2012 BFI London Film Festival including the Best Newcomer Award for Chloe Pirrie and Scott Graham.  It also won the Sutherland Award, which is an award presented for the most original and imaginative feature debut at the festival.

 

Director Scott Graham on set.

Like the short, the feature length film was shoot near Little Loch Broom in Dundonnell, Wester Ross situated in the Highlands of Scotland and again its overriding theme is loneliness. Shell is a 17-year-old girl, played by the wonderful Chloe Pirrie, who lives and works at a desolate run down petrol station with her withdrawn and softly spoken father Pete (Joseph Mawle). Her mother left them on a passing truck when Shell was only four years old. While Shell serves petrol to infrequent customers her father dismantles wrecked cars for scrap. Their relationship has always been good but now Shell is turning into an attractive young woman she reminds Pete of the woman that left and broke his heart.

The isolated petrol station above Little Loch Broom.

After the film had finished David was invited to take part in what turned out to be a very informative question and answer session expertly conducted by Richard Ashrowan who is the Creative Director for the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival[1] in Hawick which incidentally was set up as an annual festival focusing on screening work that in some way relates to the natural world, to landscape and to mankind’s relationship with natural forces.

 

with David Smith and Richard Ashrowan.

David explained his role of producer as developing the production along with the director/writer and making sure that the project was brought in on time and within budget. Another of his responsibilities was arranging the finance. He told us that it came from various sources including the BFI, Creative Scotland and the German TV Company ZDT/Arte, a representative of whom he had met at Cinemart in Rotterdam. The tie up with the TV Company meant that it could be shown on European television. The final budget was in the region of £1.035 million this enabled them to build the garage on a steel deck on the Tim Rice estate, although obviously as a temporary structure it had to be demolished at the end of filming. Which, as David explained to me afterwards, the locals were a great help removing anything of use to them! As the story was contained in one place all the filming was done on location with the inside of the structure being designed for ease of access and made the logistics a lot easier. David agreed with Richard that the weather, the background and the beautiful wild landscape were characters in there own right adding a hushed and haunting feel to the production but giving a strange claustrophobic impression to the wide open spaces. The penetrating cinematography of DOP Yoliswa Gartig takes full advantage of the sights and sounds of its bleak isolated setting, which was a metaphor for the loneliness of Shell and her father. Shot in September and October on digital rather than film for cost reasons; our guest described the movie as a roadside movie rather than a road movie because neither of the protagonists really leaves the garage.

 

Shell as played by Chloe Pirrie.

Taking questions from the floor David went on to explain how it was decided to turn a twenty-minute short into a 90-minute debut feature film. He said that once the short and its companion piece (Native Son) was made they knew that there was potential for a bigger, and slightly different, story to tell and that Scot Graham’s writing was so good that they could adapt and improve the story to fit the format of a feature film. There was however a scene deleted from the finished film, which involved two deer hunters who came into the garage and threatened Shell, because it was felt that it would spoil the poetic feel of the story.  As normal with the film club the soundtrack, or lack of in this case, was raised. It was made quite clear by Scot Graham from the beginning that he would only use natural sounds because he did not want to impose, or encourage, the audience to have emotion’s that were forced upon them, the intention was to rely on what was actually happening on screen and portrayed by the actors which I must say worked.

 

Shell with her father Pete (Joseph Mawle).

I felt that David was put on the spot when asked why Scottish film is so miserable and bleak? But quite rightly he pointed out that it is normally the debut film from a Scottish director that warrants this description and he gave the examples of Peter Mullan’s Orphans (1998) and Lynne Ramsey’s 1999 debut Ratcatcher. While on the subject he told us that the movie takes as its reference point’s the Scandinavian cinema of Lukas Moodysson, Scott Grahams favorite director Andrei Tarkovsky, American cinema of the 1970’s and the Bill Douglas Trilogy 1972-1978. He was then asked about the cast and although Edinburgh born Chloe Pirrie was always the first choice for the role of Shell, her debut feature film, a long casting process did take place. He went on to say that the other actors involved may not be household names but they are very experienced and you may have seen Joseph Mawle, who plays the epileptic Pete, in many TV productions like HBO’s Game of Thrones or the BBC drama Five Daughters as well as feature films that include The Awakening (2011) and Made in Dagenham (2010). Others involved include Michael Smiley (Hugh) who is best known for his role as a hit man in Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011) and the wonderful Scottish actress Kate Dickie (Claire) who has appeared in many TV productions and feature films including Red Road (2006), Donkeys (2010) and Prometheus (2012).

 

Will Shell ever escape from the confines of the garage?

A general examination of the film followed where the era was discussed and it was agreed that it was timeless although some of the audience believed it to be based in the late 1980’s because of the Dire Strait track played on a radio. It was also felt that the delicate balance of Shell’s growing sexuality and the constant threat of an incestuous relationship between her and her father gave the film a hint of the thriller genre. It was also agreed that the deer included in the movie were identified with our leading lady especially her eyes, she is I believe the beating heart of the film and an actress that’s quite capable of expressing feelings without the use of dialogue. It was pretty unanimous that Shell was a fine piece of work that grips its audience in a minimalist way at the same time demonstrating the effects of loneliness and isolation.  

 

Theres a strange similarity between Edward Hoopers painting and Shell and Pete's garage?

Another memorable night at the RBC in Dumfries where we were fortunate to witness the beginning of promising career for both the director Scott Graham and actress Chloe Pirrie and I’m sure we can look forward to seeing future work from both of them. Also I would like to thank David Smith for taking time out to attend the Q&A and for Richard Ashrowan for doing such a great job of conducting it.

Photo used with permission from Alec Barclay.

       

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[1] Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival was initiated as a collaborative project between Borders Arts Trust, Heart of Hawick and Creative Arts Business Network (CABN) in 2010.  The first Alchemy festival was held in September 2010. Richard Ashrowan, a Scottish Borders based moving image artist, is Creative Director of the festival.