Gypo

Gypo is an interesting British film, once again proving good stuff doesn't have to come from Hollywood. A typical(?) British family lives a life of lies and deals with things as best they can until they meet a Chec mother and daughter who change their world. Gypo is apparently Brit slang for Gypsy/immigrants. This film proves that people all over the world are intolerant of others and are hypocrites. A couple of unexpected story swings made it a little more refreshing than the often mundane screen depiction of the disintegration of a family. Since the film took the same story from several points of view, it allowed you to better understand the characters background. I was glad that they really segregated the stories, otherwise it would have been confusing. All in all a good dramatic film.

This, the first undiluted Dogme production to be officially made in the UK, benefits right away from the use of tiny hand-held digi-cams, as quite a lot of the action takes place in the heroine's crowded council house or in the cramped trailer inhabited by two immigrants, Tasha (Chloe Sirene) and her mother Irina, played by the wonderful Rula Lenska.

The council house is run by Helen (Pauline McLynn), who having raised her own two kids now has to mind her daughter Kelly's (Tamzin Dunstone) baby, while coping with a husband (Paul McGann) who has clearly lost his lust for life and believes he has been short-changed at the existential check-out. This situation is first explored from Helen's point-of-view: Kelly's college chum Tasha invited in for tea but having to put up with dad's railing against 'them immigrants, crowding into this tiny country and taking our jobs'. In this sequence, the family is fragmenting, several red herrings are chucked at us from the start, friendships are forged, the whole family throws itself into change, everyone tries to find their own way of surviving but it all seems to end in despair. Then we get it all again, from Paul's side. A natural reaction to this might be 'hold, enough!' - but now we get to see whence some of those herrings, and several more puzzlers are laid like booby traps, which may be opened eventually in the 'Tasha' story. Although there was no script, the overall structure, resembling a jigsaw being put together, must have been mapped out - it doesn't look as if it was all done in the cutting room. It works very well as a dark mystery edge-of-the-seat thriller; and just as well as an exploration of the forces of circumstance and the impulses that we employ (or imagine we employ) to deal with those forces. CLIFF HANLEY

I've given it 2, but even then I find it hard to justify such a high mark. I had high hopes for this film, having read reviews in which it was praised for presenting a refreshing and original take on the refugee/asylum issue. I'm sorry, but for me - a die-hard liberal who should have lapped up its messages - it simply didn't deliver. Stylistically, it was awful to watch: more goofs and blunders and continuity slips than I could count. The script was terrible: it seemed like a middle-class film-maker's idea of how working-class people speak and behave. It sounded like a workshop piece from a creative writing class. The characters didn't work, either. Not a single one of them was remotely believable - just a whole bunch of stereotypes. And despite a stellar cast, the acting was awful - which, I would guess, was largely to do with the direction, and not a little to do with the script. The whole thing failed to move me in any way - except when it came to ejecting the disc and taking it back to the shop.

Gypo was a big disappointment. At the start of the film the screenplay was very unrealistic and I told my girlfriend about ten minutes in that if it didn't get better I would turn it off. I held out and when the story changed person it got a lot better.

Pauline McLynn outperformed the script, she is capable of far better things. However, despite her best efforts, she just couldn't convince that Paul McGann was her husband; they were a mismatch. The star of the show was Chloe Sirene, who pulled off the Czech accent so well that she had me convinced (it wasn't until I watched the DVD extras that I found out she was English).

All in all this is a poor film. I think the director was so obsessed with meeting the rules of the 'dogme' method that she was ignorant to the fact that people would actually have to watch it. Why make a film to comply with a set of rules when you should be making it to pleasure the viewer?

I got through this movie on the strength of the performances. I'm sure it does reflect how many ordinary Britons live their lives and their attitude to refugees. I quite liked the many views of life in Margate. The roving camera style was very low budget, an almost documentary style of following the drama, almost as low key as found footage dramas. The story was sweet, which was OK, and in the end that sweetness ran counter to the brutal attitudes of some of the players. If you are looking for a very realistic look at one family's stuck-in-a-rut dynamics, and the effect on that family of coming in contact with a couple trying to settle after fleeing from Europe, then this is for you.