Topspot

I am awfully sorry to say this, really-really, but this film is the worst I've ever seen in my entire life. We got the chance to watch it during a local film festival, and it was the weakest production during the one-week event. The summary looked okay, I was interested in the technique and the new names. Although during the first ten minutes of the film (when learning about the explanation of top spot's meaning) I thought it would be good and interesting, it turned out that I'm mistaken and the film is rather... hmm... how to put it... bad, boring and stilted. The most exciting moments during the showing of 'Top Spot': counting how many people have left the movie. I stopped counting at twenty-six...

This film is another great piece to add to the ever growing collection of art by Tracey Emin. I do not find it necessary to be intrigued by her work (outside of the film medium) in order to enjoy this film. Granted, this film is not your typical flashy Hollywood Blockbuster, but if that is what you are looking for than so be it.

I do not find the film do be cryptic in any way. Yes, there is metaphorical imagery, but take it for however you want it. It tells a wonderful story about a group of girls growing up in Margate. And it is shot so wonderfully that I felt as if I were a Peeping Tom who was just on the outside looking in on these girl's lives.

It is unfortunate this film is rated so poorly by everyone on here. Maybe that's just part of the dumbing down of the world and people need to open up their minds a bit more. Not everything has to be Pirates of The Caribbean to qualify as a film. And now I'm actually quite sorry I even mentioned that film in the same write up as Top Spot.

A wonderful Limited Edition DVD was released by Tartan Video. I highly recommend picking it up before it sells out.

It is always very hard for me to come crushing down upon a film I have spent £3.75 to see and dedicated a Saturday evening to watch, but Tracy Emin's 'Top Spot' is a rare exception. In this case due to its short length of 63 minutes I have time to post my comment on IMDb immediately afterwards!

'Top Spot' is an often confusing, rarely exciting and typically arty affair. Emin fails to provide any narrative for a film that would have benefited immensely from even a few 'plot' points, instead the scenes jumble into some sort of conscious string of memories that weave annoyingly with no sense of a time line.

The six young girls, all amateurs but surprisingly confident actresses, represent the significant parts of Emin's adolescence; the loss of virginity, desire for escape, hopeless search for love, promiscuousness, bunking off school etc. However, it simply does not work as a piece of film having six people representing one person when we are expected to feel for each one individually. There is no significant character development, each event feels like an excuse for Emin to exorcise her own demons, not an emotionally charged moment for us to share and experience with her so when the film reached its hasty end I felt I did not have enough to think about, despite being presented with some rather thought-provoking issues.

On the positive side however, I did enjoy ways in which parts of this film were presented, especially when Emin was actually being truly "artsy". The scene where one of the girls is dancing in a large empty room is filmed gorgeously- the contrasting lights, the texture of the picture, the deep colour and the blurry, jagged motion of the camera produces a piece of art in itself incredibly beautiful, and one that would captivate me more if presented in isolation within the walls of the Tate Modern.

I am a very big fan of Super 8 and looked forward to when Emin chose to use it next. I feel it was an effective medium, along with the well paced editing, for showing the similarities between Margate and Egypt. Perhaps this meant that Egypt and Margate were actually the same thing to her?

Despite occasional sparks of ingenuity in the form of exciting cinematography, 'Top Spot' well and truly fails to impress as an enjoyable hour sat in front of the screen. There is little dialogue but what is said often fails to have emotional substance, carrying an atmosphere of self-indulgence and laziness. Scenes which should pack a punch, such as one which deals with a girl in an alleyway post-rape, didn't really affect me in the way in which they were presented. I know this is not because I can't relate to her pain, being male, but on account of a very cut and paste editing style which often minimises rather than maximises the emotional impact of key hard-hitting scenes.

I would not recommend that anybody pick up this film, especially if you expect a sort of arty, English version of Catherine Hardwicke's 'Thirteen'. Fans of Tracy Emin may delight in this as a kind of motion testament to her teenage years, but that will be it.

Perhaps with a strong narrative and clever character development 'Top Spot' could have been an interesting, but eye-opening look at teenage life for messed-up young girls in a boring seaside town. As it is, you'll find a cold, boring look at messed up, but potentially interesting teenage girls, succeeding in putting you well off Margate. Forever.

2/10

Rape, suicide, Margate. It is a film only Tracey Emin could have made, and probably the only film Tracey Emin could have made.

But unless you are as fascinated with Emin as she is herself, there isn't much to see here. Like the installation art for which she is best known, the film's merit is in what it tells you about its author.

Emin wanted her film to appeal to teenagers whose adolescence is as traumatic as hers was (an intention thwarted by the British censor, who rated it 18 because of an instructive suicide scene) but it is questionable how successful it would have been. The cinematography is insultingly amateurish and most scenes, whether brooding or frivolous, are made banal by the absence of narrative drive.

The story, shot on either a hand-held or fixed camera, concerns the adolescent encounters of a group of schoolgirls. The characters represent different aspects of a teenager's (ie Emin's) life. One is raped, or "broken into", as Emin was. She commits suicide, something Emin attempted. There are shots of people jumping off Margate's quayside, the place where Emin attempted to kill herself.

Another girl goes to Egypt, which is probably a metaphor for escapism and the pursuit of love, although it could just be a girl going on holiday to Egypt.

Insightful as all this is, I learnt more about the artist on Desert Island Discs, a BBC radio interview programme. I do find her an interesting person, not least because of her compulsion to communicate her life through her art, but the film was largely stimulus-free.

If Emin remains famous after her death, we might look back on this film as a fascinating insight into a troubled artist's life. Until then, we can take it or leave it.