Britain is rich in such films. From "Guessing the Train" to "Skins", the island nation’s glory and dreams, parochialism and hypocrisy, reserved vigilance, and panic hostility are usually reflected in the growth story of a teenager from the side, and let you It feels very realistic. Most people living under party education have never understood violence as a specific mode. It must be expressed in movies for the same reason, but it is a very warm and lifelike movie with deep shots. The main street of the town. The dull and unruly young people. Holding the camera in his hand, his mouth exploded. I am not a model boy does not mean that I am desperate for the world. Without the care of the previous generation, I can find it in the embrace of the small town. It's just that everything is getting harder and harder. Black and white photos are circled like film, not placed in the camera, but thrown into the past youth years.
Just like our traditional impression of England, there must be several labels: rock, rain, tavern and football. Shane Meadows has a style similar to that of the new documentary, and it can be regarded as a consistent British style.
We say that the narrative of a good movie is as smooth as poetry. A good movie created by the brushwork of prose expands from dot to surface, with small details and small interesting constants, and the big ones turn into a colorful dreamlike particle ending. The friendship support of the two-person line, the sweet perverse of the three-person line. Young memories are full of breakpoints and make people want to stop. Every conflict grows. Each frame of the picture is a masterpiece of black and white photography with simple and capable composition. British boys in the lost youth have always been very good. Actually, when you think about it carefully, the British Isles are full of fog and brit-pop is popular. It is difficult to think about sadness. It’s just like you don’t want to be in love in Taipei.
First of all, Tomo came from a foreign country, ran away from Nottingham, and came to the remote town of Sommers in London to meet Marek, an immigrant boy from Poland. Marek hides the penniless Tomo at home without telling his father who worked on the refurbishment of the St. Pancras train station. The two traveled in the streets of this small town, earning pocket money from Graham, and fell in love with Maria, a beautiful sister from France who works in a cafe. Sometimes this is the case. The story is as simple as getting up during the day and going to bed at night, without ups and downs, it's as if you are planning to do something in an afternoon.
Compared with Marek, Tomo has obvious personality differences. Tomo summed it up, he was a cumbersome and cute guy with a typical British character, full of swear words, reckless and affectionate. Although his face was naive, he was already half a hooligan. He left his hometown and wanted to ask him to find freedom again. Compared to Marek, he was much silent, not talkative, and even had very few expressions on his face. Silently holding a camera shuttled through the streets of London, the French girl who has a crush on the cafe can only secretly take pictures of the girl and dare not confess.
The title of the film is "Somers Town". It is understood that the town of Somers Town is a gathering place for low-income people in London, full of local poor and migrant workers. In this film, the Marek family are immigrants from Poland. There are only two people in the family, he and his father. The living environment is very small and shabby. In the film, the immigrant father can only drink and laugh with colleagues from Poland who are also engaged in construction work. And Marek can only be one person, so this is also the reason why Marek can only walk on the streets. He is too lonely. This sense of rootless loneliness is the bitterness of the migrants. They live in the government low-rent housing community and look for it. Work within your own capacity. So when his father came back, he saw Tomo and Marek messing up the room unscrupulously, and Marek exploded after driving Tomo away. Such bitterness made his father feel guilty. The poor who relocated from the urban area left the mainstream society and gradually became marginalized. In the film, Marek confronted his father with Tomo’s questioning why he took Tomo home and said, “You go to work during the day and drink alcohol at night. I can be alone. What are you doing?” This suddenly reminded me of another movie, "Half Nelson," where the racial issues of white teachers in black schools and the subtle mutual influence. As a foreigner, Tomo is arrogant and optimistic. He would rather wear a lady's coat and buy food to please French girls.
I like the tone and shooting of this movie so much. Because the film is black and white, with lots of natural light for real shooting, concise lens language, indoor scenes, you can see that the movie still adopts the hand-held shooting method, with slight shaking, in a small space. The crowded space is depressing, which reflects the uneasy mentality of the characters' inner world that longs for freedom, but is bound by reality.
The documentary technique of a large number of long shots and follow-up shots gives the film a touch of documentary feeling. Shooting under a lot of natural light, the faces of the characters are even overexposed, and the authentic and simple performances of the actors suddenly really have a new wave. Shadow. In the scene when Maria was sent home, it was accompanied by Gavin Clark’s ost, the switch of the big perspective, the switch of the fixed lens, the cloud and the water of the fixed lens, and the follow-up of the small panorama. The lens was slow, compared to "This is England". few. The director's style is completely personal; the relaxation and rhythm control revealed in the entire black and white tone are like narrating a small matter.
The film comes down like a piece of not-so-exquisite prose, with a touch of sadness and joy, but fortunately the ending is warm. Fortunately, Shane Meadows did not connect politics with youth, and it was due to immigrants and extroverts that they didn’t make a simple literary film about love. It's so boring. The soothing, sunny music, like the plot, trance like a beautiful dream. The wheelchair driver took the Parisian girl, and Somers fragrant all the way to Paris.
In the wee hours of the morning, I couldn't sleep, but I felt warm after watching. The director must be a Manchester United fan. Graham asked Tomo to take off the Arsenal jersey and put on Manchester United. When I changed to Manchester United, I was immediately moved, even though I was a Chelsea fan. Warm short films are always a cure and a panacea. Henry's misspelled jersey, the uncle said "ARSENAL CHAMPION", and the South London accent was very happy.
The film’s too strong personal experience, too strong masculine consciousness, and including Maria in the film, is too maternal, this is the film’s shortcomings. What Maria gave them was actually maternal love, which is their happiness. The black and white pictures are accompanied by a wonderful soundtrack. The absent parents and the gray youth are just like the black and white tones of the film, but they have a warm and harmonious friendship. The last two people’s Paris tour and the three people dating with Maria are full of Warm.
It's black and white, but there is unspeakable light. I think of Duras's cleaning, washing the inside and out of the house with soapy water, running around barefoot without any gimmicks, not beautiful and eye-catching, but I feel happy when I look at it. However, the visual weakness was completely compensated by the activated other sense organs. It seemed as if the soul was injected into the soul in an instant, just as all ordinary touches suddenly released light at a certain moment.
Gavin Clark sings in the film: This is only a small part of what we have lost, but we have picked up hope!
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