Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sterling debuts all around, September 2, 2007
This is a first film by the director, Andrea Arnold, and the lead, Kate Dickie, and the first of an intended series by a group of Scottish film makers to be set around the same group of characters. I have no idea where it will go from here, but this film presents a complete picture, a circle of tragedy that closes.
This is the type of film where a story starts in the middle and progresses without any setup exposition, you have to figure out on your own where it's going. Sometimes films like this drive me crazy, but it works in spades here, particularly during a stunning sexual encounter where all you can think is, what the heck is this woman doing? Why is she letting this happen? There could be more than one answer, it could just be lonely lust, that possibility exists, and then . . . well, the answer is revealed, and while it was hinted at, there is no way to anticipate what happens, nor how it all turns out.
If you love film, you must see this, and support these individuals. Their instincts for what appears on the screen are spot on, and I look forward to their next effort. Two small warnings; the sex is graphic, and the Glasgow accents pretty thick, English subtitles are not necessarily out of place.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of Loss and Reparation, February 25, 2008
A very impressive first outing for director, Andrea Arnold. Other reviewers have revealed the plot and the intrigue attending Jackie's(Kate Dickie)stalking through surveillance cameras of Clyde(Tony Curran), and eventual liason with him. The film is set in the grimy margins of Glasgow, where every fluttering leaf of activity caught on camera might arouse suspicion. So what is this lonely woman's obsession with Clyde? Arnold's gift of telling is remarkable. The ultra close-up framing of the leads' faces, the agile, hand-held camera made a tour de force by Lars Von Trier, effects our complicity in her quest for resolution. We are only a step behind her own awareness, her own motives, as she literally lays herself bare, sacrifices her dignity, to absolve the trauma that has frozen her. The sexual explicitness makes us feel her dilema and sympathise with Clyde's subsequent confusion.Someone said that the best thrillers burrow inward, and by the sheer power of cinematic observation make it hard for us to look away less we miss something. 'Red Road'is such a film.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Liminality, February 1, 2008
There are few films, not to speak of books (such as those written by Paul West), that focus on and reveal liminal space, or the "in-between." Red Road does this magnificently. The protagonist is a woman whose job is to watch cameras that provide surveillance around the city, to prevent and report crimes--and so she is a watcher of others rather than having agency herself. And there are moving episodes here, where she follows individuals with pets--with whom they have a relationship--and when she comes across one of these individuals with his dog, he and she look into a store window and have no relationship with each other.
There are a number of scenes where Kate Dickie, as the protagonist, is on the margins--at the wedding of her friend, for example. It is only at the end of the film that one has a glimpse of this pattern of liminality changing, when she stops to greet a man with his dog who are crossing the street.
The photography is marvelous, especially the early shots of the protagonist's face. While the face is beautiful in and of itself, the camera angles and the shading are stunning.
So to end where I began.... For those of us who have resonance with liminality, for those of us who live on the margins--however described, this is a film to watch.
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