The Living and the Dead

Unlike the previous comment(er) on this film, I'd have to say that I quite enjoyed the film, also saw at the RFF, when quite a few people walked out. The thing is you see is that I am film fodder, and I find many things enjoyable that bemuse the people I know. This is a film that dwells on suffering, and, knowing first hand what it is like to suffer, and be around suffering, I can honestly say that the film engages the element of undue pain very well. Sometimes within films it is necessary to linger upon things for longer than some viewers would like, and this is one of those cases. I hope that the collaborators of this film will not be forced into procrastination by the previous comment(er), as I would very much like to see further works of the same mould, albeit without having to travel across the sea to view them. For most people you'll need to watch this film twice to really find the intensity that was so brilliant, there are gaps, but then again, TITANIC is the highest ever grossing film, who knows perfection?

This is possibly the worst film i have ever seen. I actually saw the premiere in Rotterdam Film Festival, and whilst many people walked out I stayed to the bitter end. But that was mainly because I didn't want to lose my friends. Self indulgent is a word often overused in the arts, and some of the best music and film is incredibly self indulgent, but behind that indulgence there is often genius. Unfortunately here there is nothing, not even a plot. The mistake the director Simon Rumley makes is to dwell on the suffering of the characters, all in a kind of 'gross out' adolescent way, without any insight, or any freshness. All the best films now tend not to be so mawkish, making The Living and The Dead seem like a bad student project from the 1970s. There's no lightness of touch here and no humour. Perhaps we're supposed to laugh at mentalist James in the same way we laugh at Julian Donkey Boy. But he's just not that funny and he has none of the demented hilarity of Donkey Boy. Like the rest of the cast, he's just a stereotype, an extremely annoying stereotype. All you'll learn from The Living and The Dead is that some people clearly have much more money than sense. And I'm not talking about any of the characters in the film here.

I just finished watching two seasons of The Vicar of Dibley, and I thought I would see Roger Lloyd-Pack (Bartie Crouch in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) in something more serious.

He is a country gentleman whose son (Leo Bill, Alice in Wonderland, Kinky Boots) is schizophrenic and whose wife (Kate Fahy) is dying. He has to leave home, so he hires a nurse (Sarah Ball) to watch both of them.

The son locks out the nurse and cares for his mother. This proves to be extremely embarrassing to Mom. And, if two pills are prescribed, then taking a dozen or more will get you better quicker. Mom went from embarrassment to fear.

The sinking into schizophrenia is disturbing and frenetic and may upset some viewers, but it is an emotion packed film that bears watching.

I found this film particularly painful to watch for entirely personal reasons.

First, I am an ex-psych nurse. I am currently a Social Care Worker dealing with some of the worst cases around. I am also mentally ill, though not critically so. As such this film touched home on just about every level.

This film is black and raw and real. The acting, especially of the son, is utterly superb very much akin to cases I have dealt with, which made the rapid descent all the more believable. I sat for a majority of the film thinking of just how easily this could really happen - and likely has happened many, many times.

There is an interesting quirk of time-line throughout, which highlights the reaction of the father to the actions of the son, which at its best involves a dual view of the stairwell. I felt this was something of a pivotal point and quite superb direction. The differing states of the building itself likewise reflect the state of the mother, which is again subtle but effective.

Do not expect a standard horror here. It isn't. It feels more like a snapshot of real lives and as such is vastly more effective than any straight horror flick could ever hope to be.

I would urge anyone with even a passing interest in mental health to watch this film. Consider it a warning of how easily the system can fail, and consider yourself forewarned.

That is all.

Imagine a retelling of "The Shining" (1980) by Stanley Kubrick - but instead of Steven King's menacing snow storm and ghosts of the dead at the Overlook Hotel - this nuclear family is threatened by the bankruptcy of the landed aristocracy by health care, death by terminal cancer, and an over-protected adult son who is permanently child-like and requires vast infusions of anti-psychotics. Add to this helplessness, depression, anxiety, guilt, anger, and an oedipal-complex repressed by English manners, and you have the explosive makings for "The Living and the Dead" (2006).

Kubrick's famous emotional distance from the story is replaced by Rumley's intense personal need to pull the audience into the madness which modern medicine creates with false hopes and budget efficiencies, and especially, its patent inability to assist the emotional needs of both the terminal patient and their families. Rumley succeeds where others fear to tread by plunging the audience into the thick of it.