Red Road

Red Road is the first feature by British born filmmaker Andrea Arnold and in all honesty, it is a noticeable first film. Although there are elements of the film that are worthy of interest and discussion, the majority of the film is weak; badly written and under-developed.

Supposedly the film has been inspired by a conversation between Lars Von Trier, Lone Scherfig and Anders Thomas Jensen, whereby they decided upon a concept for a series of films whereby the same characters must be used, but three separate films are made. Although in concept it seems to be sound and genuinely quite interesting, the problem with this is that the potential of the concept simply doesn’t shine through, leaving the film seem entirely unbelievable and essentially they are lost and never to be picked up on later.

The film itself follows a lonely Scottish CCTV operator named Jackie as she becomes fascinated with a mysterious man she sees through one of the cameras. In principle it could be said that the film’s themes in the first half are worthy of attention – isolation; desperation; curiosity; and the banality of being a low to middle class Scottish woman – all of which would have made the film a much more enjoyable experience had they been explored in greater depth and the film’s centrality being simply those themes and how they impinge on contemporary Scottish society. This form of realism would have made the film so much more intriguing and made the “apparent” Dogme nature of the film become much more vibrant. The other problem with the realism of the film is that it appears, aesthetically at least, to be quite a sleek and well constructed film and had the notions that the film’s themes explore in the first half been explored it would have created an interesting combination of loneliness, bitterness et al along with a cold and often unforgiving mise-en-scene. The two would then have complimented one another beautifully, creating an interesting blip within contemporary Scottish cinema, however it simply is not so and the film does little to rouse attention to that particular cinema.

The last half of the film is shot in a haphazard way that has now become so synonymous with realism that it is recognisable from a mile off and when coupled with the sleekness and stylisation that the first half exudes, it leaves a confusing text that is so much so that it becomes almost a novice mistake that a more developed and matured director wouldn’t have made. It is this second half that creates such a weakness within the film that it leaves you wondering why you even bothered sitting through the first half to begin with. The male character Clyde for example has such poor and ill-fitted dialogue that it renders all realistic and believable character traits to almost nothing and the supposed “hard man” character becomes nothing more than a laughing stock for the remaining thirty minutes of the film.

However the structure of the film itself is competent and well balanced, the shocks and narrative twists are well-timed, leaving the audience satisfied with a semi-decent narrative construction that sadly seems so boil-in-bag it becomes another rookie mistake. What must be admired about this element of the film is that it is essentially quite bold to leave all character depth shallow and minimal until the very end of the film, but if were one so inclined as to cast their minds back to any basic generic thriller or horror film from any other director one would note that this technique has been used a thousand times before and also with greater and more impressive results.

The aesthetic tools of the film such as the cinematography and editing are also at times well crafted and the created a sense of tension that links well to the themes outlined in the first half of the film, but they are not so well sharpened as to leave a lasting impression and are somewhat lost within the next ten minutes of screen time by yet more confused dialogue and acting.

There are some more notable points that the film raises such as the level of graphic sexual content that a small Scottish film will present and to link with this, it could be worth noting how this will impinge on issues of feminism via the way in which the camera lingers on the sexual acts of the film, however there are too many weaknesses in the film that are easily apparent to make such a worthy discussion of these issues. It could also be said that the uses of the sexual content and also the way in which the lead male character talks so sexually explicitly have only been used because it is apparently shocking, whereas one could argue that such levels of sexual content and language actually provide little narrative purpose and details and that using them becomes pointless.

On the whole, Red Road is a semi-decent piece of cinema that although there are intriguing and attention-grabbing elements of the film, there are too many things wrong with the film which make it overall a confusing and bewildering film, with too many reels that are absurd, ludicrous and peppered with character actions and dialogue which simply would not happen, thus exacerbating the already weak sections of film.

As for the concept of ‘The Advance Party’, let’s just hope that the other two films are better because if they are similar to Red Road then the concept will fall flat on its face and will not be able to stand up again.