4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just Beautiful, February 12, 2008
This review is from: Poor Cow [Region 2] (DVD)
Things I liked:
-the opening track with Donovan singing about how nothing ever really belongs to a man from the day he's born to the day he dies, and this right after she's just given birth to a son, the opening scene of the movie. The sound track in this movie is really fantastic. There are several excellent acoustic songs by Donovan (a few of which I'd never heard before) among others.
- the somewhat grainy, yet richly colorful film quality.
- the shots of england, wherever they are. Going up a dark stairway hall and passing a window where outside someone's light colored laundry blows in the wind between two buildings. Another cool shot where they're on the rooftop with young Terrance Stamp singing a Donovan song in the background "Freedom is a word I rarely use without thinking..." and the camera follows the actors walking on the rooftop with a city morning in the background and the camera sweeps over the view and stops and then she steps back into the picture to have a look.
- i like the line where after we know her first husband was put away for robbery and her new boyfriend (Terrance Stamp) is also a theif, one day they're on the boat and he says how the outdoors with the trees and all are good for you, because the trees breathe out oxygen, and we.. we breathe out the other stuff..
Man, this is a beautiful movie. The camera work moves very gracefully from scene to scene, though the gritty urban setting (where is it filmed? Glassgow?) often grey though with surprising touches of color here and there, makes for an interesting contrast. Certainly a time capsule for 1967 with its music, hairstyles, occasional nature forays, etc, though it cannot be reduced to this alone. Not a 'retro' movie where you watch some cheesy flick from 30 or 40 years ago just for the fact that it was filmed then. This movie should be up there in the pantheon of great movies, though it's not even available in zone 1 format. It's a statement on the condition of life, for one woman, and finally the human condition; the feeling neither over nor underdone. The power of letting "what is" speak.
The cinematography and soundtrack do a lot to enhance the wistful feeling of the story as well, unlike Soderbergh's fairly recent The Limey, which also stars Terrance Stamp and includes footage from this movie - perhaps it was the subject matter of The Limey, a 'revenge' story, but I found the cinematography/editing in that movie a bit distracting at times - the opposite of what this movie's cinematography did for me. Still, the making of that movie is bound to create a lot of interest in this one and it will hopefully become more available soon.
Incidentally, the Japanese (zone 2) "Studio Canal"/Pioneer edition has a cover design which I think is a lot better than the European edition pictured here. The full-screen transfer was beautiful, though there were no English subtitles, and everything on the menu page was in Japanese (Japanese subtitles optional)! Probably available on Japan amazon, but it'll be zone 2..
Also check Ken Loach's 1979 "Black Jack" (amazon UK).
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I still remember this film after nearly 50 years, July 27, 2006
This review is from: Poor Cow [Region 2] (DVD)
It's doubtful if anyone will read the review of a film made nearly 50 years ago, which is when I last saw it. But then as I remember it still, I thought that must mean something.
I remember this as being one of the first really feminist films, all the more remarkable for having been made by a male director. For all that it is never a cliché and Carol White is more victim than heroine, though you can't help admiring her dogged courage in facing up to a series of impossible situations. In 1968 the words "unmarried mother" would have been a brand of shame and the film itself was vilified at the time as "kitchen sink drama", though its true antecedent is probably Dickens. It was - I think - the first one made by the greatest living British director, Ken Loach, and it changed all that, being a perfect example of his belief that art can and does change society.This film is as alive and relevant today as it was then. How many films can you say that of ?
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