| Author | Message | ||
     Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 92.4.198.16 |
A true slipstream film! I watched it last night. Jessica and I had been out all day for a difficult appointment, we were tired and in need of a good flick. We called in at the Swiss Cottage Odeon on the way home and “Never Let Me Go” was the only film we hadn’t seen already. We hadn’t the slightest idea what it was about. Lo and behold, it was a nightmarish, yet heart-wrenching science fiction concept that underlies a very human-centred story. The trouble is that it is so, so so slow. Yes, it requires a thoughtful considered approach, and I don’t need my films to be wham - bang-crash, I mean I love Hitchcock’s "The Birds" and there is no horror for almost one third of the film yet it still grips like a vice. But, come on, the narrative needed a little more pace, not much, but just a touch. Give it a go though. There are some very deep and important sub-texts here as well. Cheers Terry | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.87.170 |
Read the novel and enjoyed it greatly. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.19.231 |
I presume that's the Kazuo Ishiguro novel. It's a masterpiece - last mentioned by me in connection with my RTR of M Rickert's HOLIDAY a few days ago. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 92.4.198.16 |
Yes Des, that's he one. I want to read the novel now. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
For some strange reason, I keep seeing the title of this thread as a plea for us not to let you go truly slipstream, Terry!  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
I just came on here to say that! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I'm reading the novel now - it's probably one of the most glacial-paced books I've ever read, but it's mesmerising. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68 |
Well - I thought the film was a respectful illustration of the novel with occasional scenes that came to their own life (the cafe episode in Norfolk in particular). I much preferred the tone of the novel, which (for me at least) is horrifying precisely because of the narrator's weary almost banal acceptance. The film had too much golden elegiac lighting and altogether too much soulful music for my taste. Good performances all round, though. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I think it's a beautiful little masterpiece and wonderfully paced. But then I knew nothing about the novel, thankfully! | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.33.242.34 |
I thought it was very good indeed, and while critics have called it 'Merchant Ivory does Sci Fi' I've always been a big fan of gloomy tragic quiet Brit SF which has always been the antithesis of much US sci-fi, replacing the 'gosh wow' factor with the 'oh dear' factor instead - the kind which is so good at showing, in as understated a manner as possible, how the 'big scientific breakthrough' actually means life carries on just as humdrum and drearily as before for many, with terrible consequences for some. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Is Mark Romanek British? If he isn't he did one hell of a good job (miraculous actually) at distilling the low key, sedately paced but faultlessly acted and emotionally intense spirit of late 50s-early 60s British cinema at its best. The fact he managed it with one of the most profound sci-fi plots in recent years is an added bonus for genre fans. As I said before, the spirit of John Wyndham, at his most poignant, is all over this beautiful "little" movie. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.252.101 |
Nice sentiment expressed here: >>>Author Kazuo Ishiguro, whose science fiction novel Never Let Me Go was adapted by Alex Garland for the big screen, echoes that sentiment. "Never Let Me Go certainly has that speculative, dystopian dimension to it," he tells the BBC. "If you're a novelist of my generation, we grew up with a prejudice against sci-fi - we felt slightly snobbish about it, whereas people of Alex Garland's generation embrace computer games, manga, and graphic novels. They mix all these things with highbrow ideas. "I've learnt a lot from them, and being friends with those guys helped me lose my prejudices and a whole exciting world opens up. In cinema it's never been like that. Some of the greatest highbrow films like Metropolis, 2001 or Solaris have been sci-fi movies." | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.252.101 |
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12540392 | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
The first (and so far the only) fantasy movie ever to get best picture was LOTR Return of the King... |