I just finished watching Shane Meadow's 4 part series 'This Is England 86' on catch up TV. The series carries on from the film This Is England released in 2006. Shane states that he had a wealth of 'material and unused ideas that I felt very keen to take further.' He stated that 'audiences seemed to really respond to the characters' and the 4 part series would tell the rest of the story.
The series documents the characters of this is England over the Summer of 86, set against the backdrop of the World Cup. I thought the series was amazing, I much preferred the 1st and last episode. The first was directed by Tom Harper who has previously worked on Skins. His two episodes seemed to have more of a care-free decadence about them, whereas Shane - who directed the last two, pulled them back into a dark gritty and heartfelt truth.
One of my favourite parts of This Is England was the characters, I though it would be interesting to see how they had developed from their Skins past of racism and hatred. I wasn't sure if it would work, if the characters had been constructed with enough depth to work without the hatred of their youth, fortunately, they did. The character that stood out for me was Lol, she was caught in a fierce emotional turmoil of marriage, and sexual abuse from her father, which was all acted out brilliantly, ending in brutal bludgeoned death.
Another part of Shanes film's that makes them so impressive, is his style of cinematography. He uses a lot of handheld close ups which hover close to the face and follow the characters round with an odd haunted perspective. He mixes these with mid-to-long shots showing the characters at distance, juxtaposing a warm emotional closeness of the close-ups with cold isolation of the long shots.
Shane films are incredibly dramatic and emotional, he creates this through the use of music - or lack of in his case. No music can be heard if people are taking. It is completely silent, the only sound you can hear is that being made by the actors, making every scene incredibly eerie and tense.
If you want to see some gut wrenching acting from cut wrenching situations shot incredibly well then please watch. You can see it all on 4oD.
Incredible song taken from the advert:
Wayne Smith - Under My Sleng Teng
Excellent series! It had me hooked from the outset and the characters are just so authentic and consistent I actually half expected to bump into them in the street! I was genuinely quite distressed through Lol and Woody's relationship troubles and found I cared about them as much as I would if they were my close friends.
ReplyDeleteThe story line was every bit as shocking as the film but took tones from different avenues and controversial issues to narrate it and bring it forward which made it seem fresh, but oh so invitingly familiar. The ending was absolutely spot on; the last episode had me literally on the edge of my seat screaming at the television as if I was watching a football game where the end result would depend on some sort of life or death situation!
I was a little bit concerned when I first saw the ads for This Is England '86 in case they ruined it or tried to commercialise it too much but I should have never doubted Shane Meadows. He's a downright bloody genius.