The Living and the Dead

I saw this film at Fantasia quite recently and it completely blew me away. Me and my girlfriend were gonna take in The Lost afterwards but were so exhausted that we just went an' had a few drinks afterwards. This is an extremely unusual film - about a retarded kid who looks after his really ill mom when the dad goes away on business - and incredibly bold an gutsy I think. It starts slowly using locked off wide shots, establishing characters etc, kind of like a poor man's Merchant Ivory (the family in question are on their last legs and so there's next to no furniture etc), and then when you think you've got a hold on it Rumley says f**k you and takes it in a completely stylistic direction with crazy editing, music, camera etc. Initially this is quite jarring but it works within the context of the characterisation and the mental break-down that the retarded kid's going through that in the end I thought it's quite a brilliant device. Ultimately the film is a real emotional grind and deeply tragic but it tackles, albeit in an extreme, visceral way, what most of us at some time, I guess, will have to go through and that's having to look after ailing parents or relatives. There's no monsters in the closet or serial killers here, it's just a very stark consideration of the scariest thing around: the reality of death. This film disturbed the s**t out of me - and I wouldn't recommend it to the feint-hearted but definitely check it out if you're hard enough

I thought this movie was great, A lot of people commented on it falling short of the 'horror' genre, but I don't think it was ever meant to be one. Watch it as a tragic drama, and these disappointments fade. I think Leo Bill did a fantastic job and I felt drawn into his character even further by the camera's exceptional use as he moves about the house. I don't want to spoil anything, so suffice to say it was a well acted movie with great camera-work, an exceptional cast and the overlying doom which permeated throughout the movie drew me in sometimes - enough to identify with some the universal aspects of the story and at times feel a shudder through my back, more so than any 'horror' show I've seen in the last few years.

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.

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?

'The Living and the Dead' portrays the lives of a British noble, his wife and their adult son set in a spectacular country estate. The good days are long past. The estate is in disrepair and at risk of forfeiture, the wife bedridden most of the film and the son clinically psychotic. That sums up the bulk of what can be said with relative certainty about the plot.

The rest is a tumbling mash of conflicting alternate realities, displaced time-lines, hallucinatory visions and fast motion. Director/writer/producer Simon Rumley loves the fast motion. Leo Bill as the son spends much of the film at ten-fold speed, racing through vast expanses of interior, arms and face animated in a failed attempt to impart the viewer his perspective. It doesn't work, quickly growing tiresome and obvious. Rumley's so committed to the technique that clouds, the advancing sun, branches, vehicles, doctors and nurses eventually join the fray. Repeatedly. It's difficult to comprehend why since it has no bearing on the quiet desperation Rumley's grasping at, instead evoking the feel of an Eighties music video or a VW commercial.

It's symptomatic of the film's jettisoning coherency for atmosphere. The first half contradicts the back with no hint of resolution offered. The son proves more criminally insane than clinically yet no reason offered why he wasn't institutionalized. Early in the film when still portrayed as a happy idiot the father is constantly abusive and stern. Fatherly warmth doesn't appear until unconscionable acts are committed. The son roams free past the point any modern Western nation would have seen him incarcerated. We never know why. Likewise the rest of the plot is so artificial and bent to the requirements of intense moments all believability is lost and with it any concern for the characters. The one bright spot is Kate Fahy's terrific portrayal of the wife. She creates the few and fleeting scenes in which the film works as intended. Not content with these minor successes Rumley brushes them aside to make room for more mind-bending plot twists, snatching total failure from the jaws of mediocre success. A movie for the patient only.