IMDb Film Festival 2016: English-Language Thread

I'm taking the liberty of posting our previous discussion about The Selfish Giant here, in case it helps generate discussion.

outdorcats:It's a great film and I'm excited at the prospect of potentially bringing it to a wider audience.

Have you ever worked with a student like Arbor? I have - a few students, really - the kind of students who curse out teachers with impunity, relish breaking rules, and can't seem to stop getting into trouble. The kind of students who it seems impossible to break through to, for whom ADHD meds don't seem to work (but when are we going to realize it's about behavioral health and their home life). Though in Arbor's case it seems to be a Molotov Coctail mix of ADHD and an unstable home.

One thing that struck me watching the scene where Arbor gets expelled for defending Swifty, is how when students have a pattern of poor behavior it's easy to see everything as a part of that pattern, and trace it to a negative quality, when so many times what they're doing is expressive of something positive that's being channeled in a negative way (like in this case loyalty to his friend).

I've never traveled, never been to the UK, so I can't speak with any authority on this, but as an outsider the film seemed to be a very authentic and detailed portrait of deep poverty in North (?) England; I'm curious if you or gianduja or other British users also thought it was authentic, or were there hokey parts I wouldn't pick up on as an outsider?

Although the story is grim, there was also lots of humor, warmth, and genuine pathos, which aren't things I think of as characteristic in your average "gritty kitchen-sink drama." The story also moved along at a pretty decent pace until it came to its shocking and very emotional conclusion. I was really moved by the ending; the cast was uniformly great (especially the kids!) but they did a particularly great job casting Siobhan Finneran who could sell that conclusion so well, even though we didn't get to know her character.
flaiky:Kids like Arbor: oh yes, I've encountered many like him - both at work and simply when I was at school myself. Conner Chapman gave a fantastic, deeply realistic performance. I wonder if he is already quite close to the character...I think it's possible, since I believe Barnard found him (and Swifty) by auditioning locals with no acting experience (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

"when students have a pattern of poor behavior it's easy to see everything as a part of that pattern, and trace it to a negative quality, when so many times what they're doing is expressive of something positive that's being channeled in a negative way"

Indeed, and it's the failure to recognise these positive efforts that really exacerbates behavioural difficulties and leaves the child more bitter and alienated. I don't know if you've researched the title at all, but if not: it's adopted from a short story in which an Ogre builds a wall to exclude children from his beautiful garden, but as a result the garden falls into perpetual winter. So Barnard's film is a warning against excluding children from school, against giving up on them, because of the terrible impact it has. (A bit similar to Girlhood, now I think about it?) It's something I've always agreed with. I must say though, that in my experience it's vary rare for schools here to say "You're excluded" and then send the kids home. It's usually internal exclusion, where they still have to come to school every day and learn (only not with the rest of their class) or they are sent to a Pupil Referral Unit. Of course lots of kids bunk off all the time, you can't always control it, but...I think the film was a "worst case scenario" type of fable...Which brings me to:

"as an outsider the film seemed to be a very authentic and detailed portrait of deep poverty in North (?) England; I'm curious if you or gianduja or other British users also thought it was authentic"

I felt that it was a bit overdone - I mean, you mention "deep poverty" and indeed that's what they live in, but I'm not sure any communities here are *that* bad. This looked more like a Soviet Bloc town! I've been up north quite a few times, and lived in Leeds (which is right next to Bradford) for 3 years at uni. I certainly never saw anywhere as run down as that...but then, obviously there's no reason I would end up in such a neighbourhood. Perhaps I'm being blissfully ignorant. But I do suspect there was selectivity going on with the locations, to make it look as rough as possible. Bradford definitely has prosperous areas, often right next to the poor ones I believe, and it would have been more realistic to show samples of both (even just shots of them walking around).

I think it falls into a few "poverty cliches" as well, especially with the parents, which is what holds it back from being a really great film. The other "problem", for me (scare quotes because I still liked the film very much), was that I found it predictable. From the very start I thought 'Swifty is going to die because of Arbor's mistakes'. And then as soon as they started talking about the pylon I thought 'He's going to be electrocuted.' Which is exactly what happened lol, but I nevertheless jumped when the electrocution happened - it was frighteningly realistic. The final 10 minutes, showing Arbor's grief, were really quite amazing. My eyes filled with tears when he finally got to hug Swifty's mum. Wow, what a moment. Seems we were both struck by it.

So yes it's a very powerful film, and even if the world it presents is a "worst case scenario" as I said (which I could be wrong about anyway) then I think it's to serve as a "warning", and it's still effective. It's a shame they didn't use Lorraine Ashbourne (the woman at the scrap yard) more - she's a good actress, appears in a lot of TV dramas (and is Mrs Andy Serkis, out of interest), but barely had anything to do here.
outdoorcats:Thanks for the info on the short story, that explains the Wilde connection to this film pretty well. In Philadelphia it's pretty common for students to be excluded or expelled from schools, though in my experience the schools are bizarrely inconsistent about how they enforce those rules. Typically when this happens students have to go to a private 'alternative education' academy which teachers and students talk about in whispered tones the same way they talk about juve (their website sure looks cute though, except for the fact that one of their three main talking points is about 'saving tax dollars'). I understand teachers and school staff are overwhelmed, but they seemed more interested in complaining about their jobs and blaming everything on the parents than listening to the students and what they're going through.

Thanks also for the perspective on the film's realism. I thought a lot of the dialogue and details had a 'lived-in' feeling but also wondered if, like you said, they were being 'selective' with the locations to make it look grittier (though I have to say the school looked great - at least they weren't in Detroit - https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/672653062876204)

I didn't see the climax coming myself, though in hindsight perhaps I should have, since it's a familiar trope and was foreshadowed several times in the film


I’ll be waiting, with a gun and a pack of sandwiches.

I wonder if anyone else here works in the field of education or youth social work.

This is a section I intend to finish (by watching Blizzard and Tracks) before the fest ends.

White Bird in a Blizzard didn't work for me. The tone feels wrong and the characters are all completely unrelatable. Shailene Woodley does her very best - she's a good actress, just poorly directed here - but Eva Green is weak and terribly cast. Weirdest of all is that the mystery should be compelling and emotional but instead seems to take a backseat to Kat's sexual awakening and other irritating things. The issue of her mother's disappearance isn't given nearly enough serious consideration - and then is suddenly resolved in a rather daft 2 minutes and bam, we're finished. 

Basically, I took absolutely nothing away from it. What is truthful here? Why was I meant to care?


I’ll be waiting, with a gun and a pack of sandwiches.

The education system in Australia is completely different - polar opposite nearly. Processes exist for expelling/excluding here, but I have never heard of any actual cases of this occurring. Quite aside from the tons of paperwork involved, there is a stigma attached to resorting to expulsion, and even with theoretical expulsion, the student is never excluded altogether, merely enrolled in another local school... as far as I understand it - and again I don't know of any actual cases. Suspension happens a lot in schools down here instead; both in-school and at-home suspension. But the maximum allowable suspension period is two weeks (as far as I am aware) after which students have to be transitioned back into the school environment.

It would seem that Barnard would in favour of such a system being adopted in the UK if The Selfish Giant is anything to go by, but it is all a case of the grass being greener on the other side. Classrooms and school environments here are very difficult because all student are granted a right to attend regardless of behaviour, disability or otherwise and schools are not funded to a point where they can properly cope with such a broad spectrum of students. This in turns leads to poor educational outcomes for all students. Education is never at the forefront since so much energy is spent on merely getting students with behaviour issues and disabilities to fit into mainstream classrooms.

It's a tricky philosophical point. If one truly believes in education for all, then we have it 'right' down here at the moment and if the educational outcomes for 95% of students suffer due to the adverse behaviours and needs of 5% of students, that is merely what is necessary. I can't blame schools in the UK for enforcing expulsion/exclusion though. Lots of research as been done into the effect of various impacts on student outcomes and while teacher quality and effective feedback are high up there, removal of disruptive students reigns supreme as the chief factor that leads to better student performance.

Just to clarify, I would by no means advocate expulsion as a good solution, but assuming that UK schools are no better funded than schools down here, it is all too easy for me to see where they are coming from. Shame. I wish I could have felt slightly more for the young protagonist of the film, but I don't know if letting him stay on in school would have been better for anyone except him and his best friend.

Most people think I'm mad. At least I know I'm mad.

The casting of Eva Green is certainly quite odd. A couple of things come to mind: perhaps Araki wanted an actress capable of playing a villainess and perhaps he intentionally wanted an actress that looked too young and beautiful to have a 17-year-old daughter in order to highlight how much looks and youthfulness meant to Kat's self-absorbed mother.

I liked the film enough. Agreed that the mystery takes a back-seat a little too often for its own good, but it does pinpoint how gradual the whole thing is. At first, I thought the film was heading in supernatural territory with Green sending visions to her daughter from beyond the grave, cluing her into her whereabouts, but ultimately I think the dreams/visions represent all the clues that Kat has repressed and ignored, (unconsciously) not really wanting to solve the mystery given how much she hated her mother in the first place. More comments below.

Having seen all four films in this section now, I can safely say that White Bird is on a tier below Tracks and The Best Offer in my mind (I'd be happy with either winning this category) but I still liked White Bird more than, er, quite a handful of Main Slate titles...

Most people think I'm mad. At least I know I'm mad.

In order of preference:

Tracks (2013). Inspired by true events, this potent drama tells the story of a young woman's trek from central Australia to the ocean on foot during the 1970s - a journey that took several months with many hardships along the way. The film takes a while to get going with excessive narration by lead actress Mia Wasikowska who suggests an overload of possible reasons for her journey before beginning, but once she gets started, the film rarely lets up. The locations are a wonder to behold as she treks through landscapes untouched by civilisation without any signs of life, but the film represents a metaphorical journey too as she works through repressed memories that pop up throughout. Initially, she is resentful of all human contact, of having to rely on National Geographic magazine for funding as she does really want her journey documented, of tourists who want to photograph her, and of folks along the way who want to support her as she believes that she is independent. As the film progresses though, she comes to truly appreciate human contact and learns to accept that it is natural for people to want things from her, whether it is as love interest, a tourist souvenir, etc. Such a comment might make Tracks sound straightforward though and it is not in the best possible way; there is a dreamlike feel to the film at times as her journey is interspersed with sporadic moments of her wandering sunburnt through the desert, capturing a sense of lost time. The deliberate pacing of the movie occasionally makes it hard to get through, but it offers a memorable experience at the end of the day.

The Best Offer (2013). Intrigued by his latest client -- an agoraphobic heiress -- a lonesome art auctioneer learns to overcome his own pathological fears in his quest to help her out in this unusual mystery thriller. The film derives surprising mileage from the mysteriousness nature of the heiress whose mansion is a labyrinthine maze full of hidden rooms and doorways, and as the film pointedly acknowledges, the relationship that they ignite without ever seeing one another is very symbolic of faceless internet communication today. While the love plot is amply offbeat, Geoffrey Rush's fumbling about and cluelessness over how to romance a lady soon grows tiresome - yet the film has enough mysteries in store in order to ensure engagement. On the side, Rush is trying to construct a Hugo-like automaton from rusty old parts, while a Don't Look Now idiot savant dwarf in the cafe across the road might know more than what she tells. To say much more about the film plot-wise might spoil a fresh experience, but suffice it to say that the film's over-the-top droning on about forgery is eventually revealed to be important. The lingering final shot of the film is also quite spine-tingling with how it mirrors a lingering shot earlier on that epitomises Rush's situation. We truly get the sense that spoilers he got what was coming to him after years of deceiving others, and while it may not be the happiest of endings, the ambiguity is important to note; director Giuseppe Tornatore invites us to draw our own conclusions. And Tornatore's directing work is absolutely exquisite; every scene is meticulously framed and laid out, and while certain elements are too blatant (the main character is called Virgil Oldman; he hides behind an erotic statue; etc), the many subtleties balance things out.

White Bird in a Blizzard (2014). Haunted by snowbound dreams and visions since her mother's abrupt disappearance, a teenager has trouble processing her grief in this sombre drama from Gregg Araki with Shailene Woodley in the lead role. Less outrageous and nihilistic than the movies Araki first made his name with, White Bird in a Blizzard initially seems quite tame for the esteemed director, but much like Mysterious Skin, the film involves a youth wrestling with unhappy memories and a knowledge that she does not really want to face. While Woodley's dreams and visions at first appear to lead her to her mother's whereabouts, they actually represent all the clues and hints along the way that she has repressed, not wanting to really discover the truth of the matter. All the flashbacks reveal a rocky relationship between Woodley and her mother to the point that she probably took it as a blessing in disguise when her mother vanished, and much of the film is therefore about her feelings of guilt; she is only able to solve the mystery once she reconciles the fact that she wished her mother away immediately before her disappearance. Promising as all this might sound, the film is never quite as focused as it arguably ought to be with lots of prolonged periods in which her mother barely crosses her mind. Eva Green's performance as her mother is also problematic. Few actresses can play sinister as well as her, but she looks far too young to have a teen daughter. Woodley is solid throughout though and the underrated Dale Dickey has a nice turn as her blind next door neighbour.

The Selfish Giant (2013). Expelled from his local high school, an impoverished teenager takes to collecting scrap metal for an unscrupulous dealer in this British drama very loosely inspired by Oscar Wilde's story of the same name. Both Wilde's tale and the motion picture involve the exclusion of children with detrimental impacts and the film is highly critical of society on a whole for pushing the young protagonist out of the system without trying to understand him, leading to him being manipulated by others. Conner Chapman is convincingly frustrated as the lad in question; however, he is also so utterly obnoxious for the most part that it is not always easy to care what happens to him. He has no respect for anyone around him and is rarely ever pleasant. He also brings much of his misery upon himself with his thoughtlessness and impulsiveness. The film would seem to argue that this is merely the result of him being ADHD and not medicated, but knowing this does not make it any easier to sympathise with his plight and it is only really in the final ten minutes that we truly get under his skin and understand how affected by life he can be despite his cavalier attitude towards everything. And yet, while the story could have been much more affecting, director Clio Barnard certainly has the right approach to the material with moody skies, ominous twilight shots of nuclear cooling towers and downbeat urban wastelands. One truly gets the sense that the environment here is just as much a problem as young Chapman himself, with it being the combination of the two that leads to tragedy and disaster.

Most people think I'm mad. At least I know I'm mad.