Bridgend

This is one of those movies that you quite enjoy watching because the acting is good and you want to find out what's going on vis a vis the compelling and suicide-packed plot. Sadly you never do. It becomes increasingly ludicrous without respite. Shame. I thought it was going somewhere...

There's a documentary made a few years earlier that is way more informative about these events in Bridgend than this really quite messy dramatisation. This really centres around the relationship between the newly arrived "Sara" (Hannah Murray) whose dad "Dave" (Steven Waddington) is a police officer and "Jamie" (Josh O'Connor). The latter lad is a lifer in this town and quite possibly knows something of what has caused the almost lemming-like suicidal activity that is puzzling this small community. Unfortunately, this film chooses not to focus on any aspects of these tragedies, but more to shine it's light on the boozy and thuggish activities of the town's fairly lawless youth - which I have to say, isn't really very interesting. It's got O'Connor in it, so of course there are sex and sexual tensions, but he's nowhere near his best and the remainder of the cast - some of whom are real locals, deliver little more than a angrily scripted critique on a recently arrived family under pressure, some hormonal and cultish messing about in the river and it leaves us none the wiser about the root causes of these deaths nor about the complexities of the grief and, to an extent, the fear felt by those surviving. Perhaps the six years director Jeppe Rønde spent researching the film and acquainting himself with the community immersed him too deeply for him to remain even slightly objective about what he was trying to tell us, and so what we have is left isn't really worth the film, sorry.

Got to be honest, I did not get what was going on. I'm thinking perhaps I'm just too old to understand what's going on in the minds of teenagers, though at the same time, I do remember times as a teenager when I left like just letting go.

The movie is based on actual events. A small town in the south of Whales that has had a high suicide rate among teenagers from 2007- 2012 and no explanation was given for why this was happening as the teens killed themselves without giving one.

It looks like the filmmakers are trying to make as real of a narrative as possible to what was going on in the town. Exploring the day to day lives of these kids as they attempt to live their lives to the fullest until one day they just decide they don't want to anymore.

I did like the look of the movie, and how it flowed. The main character, Sara was great to look at, I loved her interactions with other characters such as Thomas and Jamie, it was beautiful to watch and felt very natural, just a bunch of kids connecting. Also felt the music greatly added to the film. Bridgend really feels like the filmmakers are running the events through their heads to find an answer themselves to what's going on but never do.

Bridgeend works without a plot, which does not work for me. The movie is met for a certain type of person and I'm definitely not that person it's trying to reach and I just have to except that.

I did like the cinematography the art direction and the acting, but the concepts do not reach me and because of that I needed the answer these kids could not find.

Between 2007 and 2012 were committed 79 suicides by hanging in Bridgend County, a coal mining province in Wales, and mostly among teenagers. Based on this tragic true story, the film Bridgend, directed by Danish rookie Jeppe Rønde who until then only made documentaries, is a fictionalized version of the case. The story revolves around the protagonist Sara (played by Hannah Murray, known for the character Gilly, of Game of Thrones), a young woman who moves to a small town in Bridgend County due to her father's job relocation, the police officer Dave (played by Steven Waddington; he starred in the movie Imitation Game - 2014). Being a new girl in town Sara does not have any friends and her favorite hobby is riding her horse, Snowy. But gradually she gets drawn into a group of mysterious teenagers who appear to be connected to the wave of suicides, which causes concern of her father, who investigates the deaths.

To make this movie the director Rønde spent six years researching, interviewing and accompanying the teenagers who lived in the area and wrote the script based on their stories. There are theories about the deaths, but local authorities still do not know what motivated the suicides in which the film was based. Another detail is that the motion picture was filmed in the very Bridgend County.

The film portrays the reckless life of teenagers and uses the clichés that are already well known in adolescence representations: parties ruled by alcohol, cigarette, riots and dips in the lake, in a quest for freedom, to experience feelings without worrying about the consequences of your own acts. The intergenerational conflict is another point addressed and is showed by the gap between parents and children, who can not interact or communicate with each other.

With a gloomy and gray, grim and melancholic atmosphere, Magnus Nordenhof Jonck's photography (known for his work in Kapringen - A Hijacking - 2012 and Krigen - A War - 2015) creates a claustrophobic tone that makes you feel as if something terrible could happen at any time. Part of this constant tension effect is also built by Mondkopf's soundtrack, which uses the electronic sound to keep the suffocating tone in the movie. Bridgend quite remember the movie The Witch (2015) for the setting yearned in each frame.

Despite having an efficient cast the film could have developed the characters more. Another weak point was the way the script was written. The story does not follow a specific line and ends up being confused and not promoting the necessary understanding. The narrative focuses only on the lives of adolescents, leaving aside important parts as the parents viewpoint, the investigative work of the police and how the suicides affect the local community. Rønde was bold in its proposal to portray a difficult subject in an abstract way and ended up delivering a smaller film than it could be. Especially for the setting and the visual quality that are top- notch. Perhaps part of the answers that were left unclear can be found in the documentary Bridgend (2013).

Originally posted in: https://vikingbyheart.blogspot.com.br

Bridgend attempts to explore a deeply unsettling real-life tragedy, but despite its eerie atmosphere and strong cinematography, the film struggles to deliver a coherent or impactful narrative. The misty, bleak landscapes perfectly set the tone, and there's an undeniable sense of dread throughout. However, the storytelling feels vague and frustratingly elusive, failing to provide meaningful insight into the tragic events it depicts.

Hannah Murray delivers a committed performance, bringing raw emotion to her role, but the film's repetitive nature and lack of depth make it a difficult watch. Instead of diving into the psychological and societal factors behind the story, it leans too much on mood and abstraction, leaving the audience disconnected rather than immersed.

While the film deserves credit for its ambition and visual aesthetic, it ultimately falls short of being a gripping or thought-provoking experience.