16 Years of Alcohol

This is a strange morose film. At times it felt like a full length student movie with little in the way of plot development but some interesting themes. It had some interesting points to make on alcoholism but was more a study of the drinking culture of the Scottish working class. The film was held together well by Andewr McKidd who occupies most scenes with some good supporting cast and a cameo from director Richard Jobson. A satisfying film though I am not sure I would want to watch it again. Judge for yourself is my strongest recommendation. All in all this is a good but not great film. Some of what saves the movie are the interesting camera shots and a great soundtrack that I will now definitely be seeking out.

From Kevin McKidd's stunning performance to the exquisitely shot Edinburgh exteriors, this is one of the most beautiful and evocative films I've ever seen. Anyone who grew up in Britain during the 1970s will recognise much of what's up on-screen. McKidd and Jobson have captured the teenage experience of those years perfectly and reproduce the entire register of repressed emotions and violent undercurrents with unswerving accuracy.

Naturally, it's a film about redemption - of sorts - but the tantalising, bitter-sweet promise of love and hope that permeates this film is delivered with a genuine toughness that sets it apart from the usual Brit-flick. File alongside some of the best European imports of recent years ... a wonderful and powerful movie that everyone should see.

I'm not a huge film buff but I went to see a screening of this film at the GFT in Glasgow on Monday and Richard Jobson was giving a Q & A afterwards.

Thought his answers to the audience were good and definitely helped make sense of the film a bit much. He made some really good points about the types of films coming out of Scotland these days and how he was trying to get away from that drab reality style we're used to seeing.

it's worth seeing anyway, I wouldn't write it off straight away.

I was not expecting much from '16 Years of Alcohol'. Perhaps an overly sentimental look back at Scottish urban life, perhaps a neo-realist bleakness. But when it started with hypnotically beautiful images of Edinburgh and a voice-over in that recognisable cadence, with repeating cycles of words drawing out every ounce of meaning from clichés like "hope"... well, I knew that I was firmly in Richard Jobson territory, and that maybe he has always been a film-maker at heart. He skirts cliché while playing with it, trying to show the violence endemic in that society and making many references to other films ('Clockwork Orange', westerns, 'Trainspotting', Martin Scorsese, etc.). It is larger than life and demonstrates how the mythic archetypes shape the characters rather too small for the roles they want to adopt.

Kevin McKidd is brilliant as "Frankie", a character the amalgam of Jobson and his brother; I kept forgetting he was not in fact Jobson. The women are incredibly beautiful and yet have a depth of character not commonly seen in films that make women into such visual feasts. They are saviour archetypes but again somehow avoid cliché. How is Jobson doing this? There is some subtle artistry at work here. The cinematography is gorgeous and I was glad for the snippet of Skids on the soundtrack, though 'Love is the Drug' gets the best treatment in a scene that is both scary and hilarious.

The film is dedicated to Jobson's brother, who did not escape the life of alcohol and violence and was murdered a couple of years ago. In the post-film talk at the Dublin Film Festival, Jobson revealed he had in fact run with the most notoriously violent of Edinburgh's youth gangs, until Skids took him away from that. This is quite obviously a very personal film and yet a highly aestheticised interpretation as well.

I did not want the film to end, and would gladly have sat through it a second time immediately. Maybe it's just where I'm at in my life right now. Maybe it's because I have spent so many hours over the years infiltrated by Jobson's aesthetic. Maybe it's just a damned good film.

'16 Years of Alcohol' won Richard Jobson the award for Directorial Debut at the British Independent Film Awards. It has received glowing reviews from Time Out, The Guardian, and Sight and Sound. It has played at festivals the world over. Forget the dismal comments of those too cynical to enjoy real film-making. See this poetic triumph for yourself.

Films about alcohol are usually depressing. They rob all the enthusiasm for life one might have in just a few hours and leave you staring into the void at the end, wondering what the point was. It's difficult to catalog them in any way, because a good "alcoholics movie" is one which swiftly flows along certain psychological retinues and steadily builds up to a mammoth of self deprivation.

However, this isn't truly a film about alcohol. It's more a film about getting a life (yes, Trainspotting), portrayed in a less imaginative way. It all gravitates around love and the end is helplessly tragic, but "Sixteen Years of Alcohol" isn't that bad. Some sweet imagery and photography might make it worth your time. Also, the story resides within the soul of everyone who suffers due to lack of purpose, not only those subdued to the magic liquor. It's a borderline movie: you may very well dislike it, because the storyline is crap. Like all those films which fit into this part of the movie-specter, "Sixteen..." has good and bad parts. Just to name one, I want to recall the "Clockwork Orange" scenes, which are a homage-like rip-off, that barely prove a point. Moreover, those scenes feel terribly frustrating.

All in all, it's not too bad and it could hardly have been better. No one need to watch it, but everyone is invited. Check out the party. 6/10