Norfolk

Norfolk is a moody, disjointed art film. It is as grim and impenetrable as the characters.

A father and teenage son live somewhere in the Norfolk Broads. A disheveled home with plenty of television sets. They are reclusive, as if trying to remain under the radar.

The father has taught his son how to read, write and shoot. That is all the boy needs in life to get through.

The man has been a mercenary and is a killer. He might also be mad. He gets instructions to carry out a job.

Also on the horizon is a bitter old couple. The old man dreams of killing the father is sadistic ways. They are the parents of the woman he married. The teenage son is their grandson.

They plan to take the boy from him. It might that his father might have killed his mother. The boy has got involved in a relationship with an East European girl who is linked to his father's mission.

Denis Ménochet gives a brooding performance as the father. It is a shame that he receives no help from the oblique screenplay. For example it is left for you to guess how he dealt with his in-laws.

This is a film with few words and not much of a story. It relies on visuals but it is not enough, the film is listless.

A visceral energy pushes through this film as a juxtaposition of troubled histories bubble below the surface of mental and physical landscapes. This is a raw film with not only a brooding intensity around it but also containing an undercurrent of uncertainty, distrust and menace. Polarities of alienation and longing, love and sorrow permeate the principal characters in a setting which affords degrees of anonymity and distance. The film's spare and enigmatic aura gives space to the various relationships where time and past events impact on the present. It breaks boundaries and sets up new markers in creating situations where pursuit and emotion collide to produce fragile new directions. To ask whether this film works in a traditional sense is to miss the point. Here is a created work which punches at the margins, reminding the audience that there are still new ways to tell a story.

Cinematography wildly overdone, script wildly underdone, acting so-so, verdict: film school end-of-year project.

I had little idea what was going on, but I didn't really care either. No redeeming features anywhere to be found, a waste of time.

Some films are awful, it's transparently obvious what they're trying to do but they fail on every point. But some films are bad in a different way: it's completely unclear what the director had in mind. Or, perhaps the best way of explaining 'Norfolk' is not to discuss plot, character, or cinematic style; but rather to imagine what would happen if someone with neither talent nor a budget aspires to make a vaguely artistic, pschological thriller. The "so bad it's good" trope doesn't even apply here, as everything is so muddled as well as inept. This really does feel like a school film-club project; and one that fundamentally, teaches the lesson that making movies is hard. Don't do it, kids!