| Author | Message | ||
     John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Lady P & I managed to see this last night so here’s what I thought: Those yearning for the return of the ‘auteur horror’ that we seemed to see so much of in the eighties (or at least a lot more of than we do now) can rejoice prior to wallowing for nearly two hours in this utterly delicious British art-house horror from writer-director Philip Ridley. I’ve hesitated to describe it as such, but I can’t think of any better way to sum up the movie than to say that if Gary McMahon & I were to write a script together the result may well be very much like ‘Heartless’ with Mr McMahon batting first. The first half is ultra grim, both in setting and outlook, complete with dialogue to match (“Life is just a pile of shitty chaos and growing up is when you learn to accept that”, “The future is a kingdom of horror”) and could easily be a filmed Zed story. However, once our central character makes his devil’s bargain and has to commit murder to honour his side of it, you could well find yourself laughing out loud at the sheer outrageousness of the direction the story takes. This movie has been likened to Candyman, but whereas Bernard Rose’s picture was essentially about middle-class fears and kept itself (and the viewer) fairly detached from its council housing estate setting, Heartless never leaves its grimy world of chavs, violence and Molotov cocktail assassinations. It falls down a little towards the end but I think quite a few people on this board are going to like this, and a couple will absolutely love it. Like I said on another thread, this only got a 4 day release on the tiniest screen of one of our Bristol art-house cinemas so DVD may be the only way for most to see it. Like our local review mag said ‘If there was any justice Philip Ridley should be given Richard Curtis-sized budgets and told to make whatever he damned well pleases’. And they’re damned well right. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I must see this. (And thanks for the name-check, John). | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.23.233.247 |
I'm guessing middle classy type people who don't have to put up with such things in real life will find it quite diverting. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I just bought the DVD. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Good man! We're definitely going to watch it again as I'm sure it's going to repay multiple viewings. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
The novel I've just handed in to Angry Robot actually features, among other horrors, demonic hoodies. I hope Ridley's aren't similar to mine. :-/ | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Oh, yes. Just watched Heartless and bloody loved it. The best British horror film since The Descent, and the second strong film I've seen this year tackling the subject of gang culture on the streets of Britain (the other one is the unexpectedly excellent Harry Brown). This is distinguished by a clever script, some fine performances, great direction and photography, a lovely soundtrack, several genuine scares, and a superb trickster ending that had me saying "bravo" to my TV set. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
"I have seen the future and it's a kingdom of horror." Me too, Philip. Me too. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.204 |
When did the future turn from being a place for our hopes to a place to store our fears? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Just watched Heartless and bloody loved it.  I bet you spotted which bits I liked the most!  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Proto: the early 1970s. The decade optimism died. John - tes, I think I probably did. I bet you spotted my favourite bits, too. The first half was designed for me; the second half was designed for you. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
Zed, so was touching the face of the Moon in 1969 the high water mark of Mankind? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Maybe it was, Proto...maybe it was. And what a depressing thought that is, eh? | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
"With the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." | ||
| Ian Alexander Martin (Iam) Username: Iam Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 64.180.64.74 |
Lady K, what was that quote from, and how does it fit into the whole of this? Please explain, showing your calculations. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
"Maybe it was, Proto...maybe it was. And what a depressing thought that is, eh?" Well, at least we're privilaged to have lived in what is undoubtedly the most interesting century in history. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
Mr Martin, is your google broken? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"When did the future turn from being a place for our hopes to a place to store our fears?" In fiction, surely from the very first future dystopia, and that was written many years ago. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.111.142.82 |
'Zed, so was touching the face of the Moon in 1969 the high water mark of Mankind?' And Kate's quote, too. I've come back to reading them twice now. Can't shake them off. They continue to resonate with an awful sadness. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
True, Ramsey. But there was also a point when dystopias changed from being polemical to being merely pragmatic in their forecasting. About the time we realised that the Star Trek kind of future, with space travel and space colonisation, is no more realistic than Lord of the Rings. We know human life has nowhere else to go beyond Earth, so the only question is when human life on Earth will end: is there one more generation, or maybe two, or just possibly three? Nobody is expecting a future of less poverty, less starvation, less pollution or less war. We now fully expect that living conditions and cultural conditions will decline fast and hard for as much future as there may be. In that sense the mood has really changed. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Kate's quote is, I believe Hunter S. Thompson. Is it Fear & Loathing..., Kate? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Thanks, Joel: you've just depressed the fuck out of me. Because I know you're right. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.111.142.82 |
'We now fully expect that living conditions and cultural conditions will decline fast and hard for as much future as there may be.' Can you imagine it...groups of people trying to survive by any means possible...everything our ancestors have tried to do coming to nothing. Now I'm depressed. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Rosa Luxembourg said in the 1930s: "Humanity faces a choice: socialism or barbarism?" We've made that choice and the future generations, if any, will endure the consequences. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 193.89.189.24 |
''With the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." My guess is also that the above is from Hunter S Thomsen; I remember the scene in the film, not the book, when he is in the thrashed hotel room at his typewriter and looking out the window yes? Eh, and as regards to 'high water marks'- THIS WEEK there has been an ASTONISHING leap forward in science : 'Craig Venter and his team have built the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporated it into a cell to make what they call the world's first synthetic life form' whether or not this application is a disaster or an amazing opportunity to fix pollution problems in the atmosphere for example (organisms can convert CO2 back 02 for example, or rinse oil from the sea etc)Of course releasing new organisms into the environment to fix these problems might have consequences we can't even imagine. And CERN just went online. We are living in extraordinary times. The scientific breakthroughs might be far beyond what we can imagine at present. If we change the way we think, and use these innovations in the right way, it doesn't all have to be doom and gloom, but it feels like this is an essential time to act and use these new technologies wisely... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Joel is right and so is Karim. Only in times of crisis does the best in humanity gain the upper hand and put us, as a race, in the right frame of mind to swallow our pride, face painful truths, knuckle down and start co-operating. We are entering a new era of necessary global pragmatism and will never have a better opportunity to fully embrace and enshrine in our laws the ideals of socialism while shaking off the capitalist monopolies that have seen so many areas of research and scientific advance repressed as a threat to the conservative status quo i.e. to keep our fat cat overlords in the manner to which they have grown accuctomed. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Stevie, you're right. But 'we' won't take that opportunity. Because the ruling class will say no. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.236.45 |
In fiction, surely from the very first future dystopia, and that was written many years ago. My vote for the first written dystopia is in Genesis, the story of the Tower of Babel. It's God levels that one: "The LORD said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.' " -- Genesis 11:6-7 ... First God doesn't want us knowing too much (the Tree of Knowledge), now He doesn't want us to think we can do anything if we put our minds to it... He's so Un-American! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
"Stevie, you're right. But 'we' won't take that opportunity. Because the ruling class will say no." They keep oozing upwards through society and we keep chucking them back down again. It's a cycle - we just have to keep turning the soil over with our spade. The sods. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
Yes, it's Hunter S Thompson, from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Of course, Thompson was talking about the love generation; I just thought it went with Proto's comment. |