Red Road

This film tries to create an aura of mystery and fails. It ends up being predictable and ultimately disappointing. It builds itself up for a major payoff that ends up not being anywhere near as shocking as you are lead to anticipate. Clyde turns out to be yet another typical Glaswegian anti-hero who committed a crime he didn't mean to and Jackie is just another person who hasn't gotten over the pain of loss and goes out of her way to manipulate her position, both at work and in her 'entrapment' of Clyde. The film captures the 'dreach' or bleakness of Glasgow well and it definitely captures the nature of technology and the certain voyeurism that results from it more often than not. But ultimately, it is a very goody-two-shoes ending. The best parts of the film are the acting, cinematography which has a Dogma 95 quality and the editing but again, the script is a let down. It could be a story that happens ANYWHERE and it fails to explain why necessarily Glasgow. All together, I found this film to be too hyped up to bother.

This movie is a slow but engaging film about loss, guilt, and urban life in Scotland. I found it intriguing to watch the lives of lower class people in Scotland and its unglamorised portrayal of daily existence in high rise apartment blocks. Messy flats, shitty greasy spoon diners, laundromats, housing blocks with no frills, no trees, just like the real thing.

The surveillance camera cop was interesting in itself, but the story was almost a bit part player in this film. yes it was interesting and the way it was unveiled without giving away any details before you absolutely had to know them was well paced.

But the characters were the most interesting thing, This is bleak, modern, urban life, real and uncompromising. Not overly ugly, just raw and real, and interesting.

I saw "Red Road" at Cannes, and it was my pick as best film almost to the end, beaten out only by "Pan's Labyrinth". The film keeps you off balance throughout because you are not told what to think of events; they simply unfold without explanation until the events themselves necessitate dialogue between the two main characters. Not knowing becomes rather vexing because you are always trying to figure out why the protagonist does so much that you feel is wrong, but it's all just part of the fun. And the kind of storytelling I enjoy most. It reminded me of "Exotica", another film I loved. Too, the faces of the actors are relatively unfamiliar which adds to the mystery, since they carry no "baggage" from previous films to the characters.

There doesn't seem to be a distributor connected to this movie yet, and we'd really lose out if it doesn't get to the U. S. To the reviewer who gave away the plot, you are an ass.

I saw the North American premiere of Red Road on Sept 14, 2006 at the Isabel Bader Theatre during the Toronto International Film Festival.

This was extremely well made for a first time feature and the story line packed quite a few wallops on the way. It is a slow build up so just be patient, there'll be plenty of shocks to come and it is quite a while before all the pieces fall into place.

It was a very original idea and story by Andrea Arnold using the characters imposed on her by the limitations of a new Dogme-like film rule called Advance Party. 2 more films are set to come using the same lead characters and actors but in entirely different contexts. All of them must take place in Scotland according to the rules.

Director Andrea Arnold was there for the North American premiere and led a lively and humorous Q&A at the end that included the somewhat chilling statistics that the UK has over 4 million CCTVs or 1 for every 14 people and that overall they have 20% of the CCTVs in operation on the entire planet.

Lead actors were very convincing and natural, I'm guessing a few of the small parts were played by non actors which i love and thought it added even more authenticity, the inner city settings and photography were gritty and real, an area which had obviously been excluded in so many ways and that grim reality was truly captured by the film. Story kept me guessing all the way through which i like, i did think i had the plot figured out at one point but i was way off the mark. Loved the general pace of the story and the fact that the script was so honest and uncompromising. I also enjoyed the more general theme of our living in a society in which we are being watched constantly without our knowledge and the privacy questions that generates. Highly recommended.