The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael

i would like to say i think this film is soulless empty and devoid of any emotional depth, i don't know if that is the point but i thought it was stunning.

For me the whole point of it was this is what life is like for many, the uber violence of Kubrick clockwork orange was about the future, this is the same in this film but it is about the present.

Those who hate it for this, is a good thing. I personally recognise many of the characters in this film, the fact that they are emotionally underdeveloped is the point.

I thought this film was nothing short of brilliant. It was horrible to watch at times but that doesn't make it a bad film and as for people complaining about a weak supporting cast well ffs i don't think they had a Hollywood budget.

the more films like this the better

Well done Thomas Clay

As another poster has written, it's a shame that all many will talk about is the final scene. Before the last ten minutes I experienced a low-key, beautiful and thoroughly engaging piece of work.

Little gems include a shared silence between three young leads on a lonely beach, the fantastic and underused Lesley Manville checking herself in front of a mirror before going out, and the quiet disdain a father has for his eldest, just released from prison.

It also features a scene which I believe shocks the audience in an intelligent way; rather than have anything thrust into our faces, we just hear something at a party, behind a wall, and imagine what it looks like. We don't need to see. Compare that with the final ten minutes, and you have a subtle and often moving story almost completely ruined by a talented young director's need to shock.

This will be a quick review because this film does not warrant anything in depth. The characters are shallow with barely no backstory or progressive development. Teens maybe one could be as old as 20 who comes home from jail do a couple horrible things to a girl and a adult couple, merely because they're psychotic adolescents. I actually enjoy disturbing movies when they have substance or a storyline atleast but the problem with this is no type of penalty or reaction is shown no follow up to what just happened the movie just ends with the most moronic quote I ever read that has nothing to do with what just took place. Terrible waste of time. Crazy dummies may believe they can pull something like this off with out getting life in prison or worse.

I am liberal. I have always taken pride in my ability to keep a certain intellectual clarity when confronted by a particularly provocative work of art. I love art - whether movies, paintings or novels - and I believe that art is not art unless it provokes some kind of reaction, positive or negative.

Yet I must confess that "the scene" at the end of this film pushed my own flexible limits of stomachability. I won't describe the scene in any detail - you just have to see it yourself - but let me say that I have never, or may never again, be witness to such a finger-curlingly, teeth-clenchingly HORRIBLE act of violence on the big screen.

The visual presentation of the wine bottle moment was shocking enough, yet it was it's complete unpremeditatedness, it's coming like a knife out of a dark room, (even after the rape) that really threw me.

The film finished two hours ago and my head is still reeling. I will not attempt to rationalize or explain the morality or acceptability of such a closing scene: it is a purely subjective exercise, dependant on the viewer's own values and tastes. This was a point made by the writer and director in the heated Q & A which followed. They refused in any way to give an answer to the most prescient question: WHY? And they're right. The whole point is that the film, as a work of art, which, if flawed, I believe it is, does not answer questions but poses them. Questions not about society or the causes of violence, but about art itself. You cannot watch this film without having to deeply reconsider your understanding of the scope of the much-overused term "Art".

Finally, I would like to say that it's a great shame that the only thing people will talk about is the final scene. The rest of the film is a beautifully shot, clever, and above all, authentic take on life in a debilitated British seaside town, not unlike the town I grew up in. If it had somehow ended differently, I am quite sure it would now be receiving rave reviews from those liberal-minded critics who salivate at the mention of a gritty, British, class-driven drama.

But as it is, a lot of good stuff is about to be swallowed in the growing whirlwind of controversy, and, at best, the film will be consigned to 'risque' or 'cult' territory in our cultural estimations. A shame indeed.

I am not unfamiliar with movies about rape, torture and violence. Even "Irreversible" makes some kind of sense to me, but this movie just feels so forced. Watching this, I got that whole way of filming; distant and cold. But even with movies like this, there is supposed to be some kind of.. level, where you can touch the material. And this film fell flat. I didn't get anything from this. Am I supposed to feel horrified for the sake of lost Youth? War happens, so let's get rapey and murderous? What the a f? Undeveloped characters and plot are my pet peeves and this film had both. So... NO.