When is it set?
can't work it out! Some parts seem very modern and some a lot older.
oh, good. for a moment there i thought we were in trouble.
That's what I thought at first. There is no set time period, although Oliver's house seems to be stuck in an early 1980s timewarp.
Peckham's boring and flat on Sundays. In fact, England's boring and flat on Sundays.share
I think, but not entirely sure, that's set some time in the mid to late 90s. The book is anyway, thereabouts. It's never really said, but there are things mentioned which give a clue.
share"There is no set time period"
After reading more of what Ayoade has to say about it, this does indeed seem to be the case.
From an interview he gave with the BBC:
There's a certain innocence seeing Oliver run to the phone box to call Jordana. Yet Ayoade says his film is not set in the 1980s.
"The idea was for it not to be set in any specific era. Because there's no computers or mobile phones I guess that makes it seem like the '80s or early '90s. But it was only in order not to have what we consider the social necessities of now.
To me, all coming of age stories seem to be set slightly in the past. I definitely didn't want to make it all 1980s, with hilarious clothes and music."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12730794
It does make you wonder why Ayoade then tied it down with the 'Crocodile' Dundee reference, though. He used original music because "He didn't want audiences to hear a track they already associated with a memory or a movie.", and the TV show Ben Stiller appears in is fictional. He could easily have created a fictional movie too, or just not mention a title at all. Perhaps he's a Paul Hogan fan?
Sorry but everything in the hairstyles, most of the cars, the decor, the duffel coat, technology (or lack of) screams mid to late 80s.
Really like Richard Ayoade in Boosh and the IT crowd and the, in my view, massively underrated Nathan Barley, and agree with most this is a great directorial debut, but... he's being a bit disingenuous in that interview.
He was a child of the 80s so can't help referencing its nostalgic naff feel, and a cynic might think his comments about it being non-specific were because he was on a low budget and wanted to avoid the need to remove every continuity/anachronism/goof that he must have known would otherwise be over-analysed by geeks... er.. us. Oh well.
darker than biscuit, lighter than oakshare
Spielburger wrote:
From an interview he gave with the BBC:There's a certain innocence seeing Oliver run to the phone box to call Jordana. Yet Ayoade says his film is not set in the 1980s."The idea was for it not to be set in any specific era. Because there's no computers or mobile phones I guess that makes it seem like the '80s or early '90s. But it was only in order not to have what we consider the social necessities of now.To me, all coming of age stories seem to be set slightly in the past. I definitely didn't want to make it all 1980s, with hilarious clothes and music."bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12730794Thank you for finding this quote. It makes complete sense to me that Ayoade wants to set the story "not so long ago," but not at a too specific time. I do not understand why so many posters to this board don't accept that.
It does make you wonder why Ayoade then tied it down with the 'Crocodile' Dundee reference, though.Because he wants the audience to understand a specific sort of film (a popular, action film, not an art house film), and the sort of person who likes that sort of film. You cannot do that with a made-up film.Almost everyone has a general idea of the intellectual level of Crocodile Dundee films, and that is the point. Almost no one could give you the exact year of the original._______________For easy markup see http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/42255 share