Brave

Bloody awful video accompaniment to a near classic album.

Brave was Marillion's seventh studio album, their third with Steve Hogarth. It was that most unfashionable of products, a concept album from a prog-rock outfit in the early 90's.

The story was complete invention, starting from a real event; the police found a young woman wandering on a motorway bridge. She couldn't or wouldn't tell them anything. From this starting point, the group wove a story which covered abuse by her father as a child, moving on into drug abuse and a few other events leading to her being on the bridge, contemplating suicide.

The film is an interpretation of the story, with the co-operation of the band - although they feature only in passing on screen. This film is about as far from MTV video as it's possible to get!

The story is mostly told via the images and Marillion's music - there is little dialogue. As such, I feel the film is something of a curate's egg; some of it works really well, while others need more explanation. The scenes with the Hollow Man (the man in the mask) could do with something extra, since it's not really clear if this is simply a barrier the girl erects to protect her from people who hurt her, a cipher that means these people are interchangeable, or something else entirely.

Not a bad effort, but not brilliant, either. If you're unfamiliar with the original album, be prepared to be baffled the first couple of times through.

Arguably Marillion's greatest achievement in a career of consistent lack of recognition, Brave is a remarkable piece of music with astounding lyrics. Steve Hogarth sinks into the world of an angst ridden teenager with frightening accuracy, but in the hands of Richard Stanley the idea of making a vivid visual accompaniment to the songs collapses into embarrassment. The movie looks dreadful for a start, with horridly crude special effects. The little dialogue there is is cringeable. And a relatively simple story becomes complicated and confused, with men in masks and voodoo temples wandering in and out of the story for no reason. This is just being obscure for the sake of it; there are no meanings being this chaotic mess. Even the opening sequence of the girl on the bridge is bland. It's shot in daylight...everything that could be wrong with such scenes is. Josie Ayres is suitably expressive in the lead but she clearly deserves better than this. It's childish and tries to shock, but only alienates. It all goes to show that the idea of a music video is frequently a bad one, robbing music of the richness of your own personal imaginings. And yet Marillion have done a few god 'uns, namely Kayleigh, Sugar Mice and He Knows You Know.

I liked director Richard Stanley's HARDWARE and I really liked DUST DEVIL so when I saw this "concept" film by the director on DVD, I forked over the money and crossed my fingers. Brave is a film that revolves around it's musical score which is a full length album by a British band called Marillion. Now, I'm not a fan of their music. Aside from some nice ambient moments I can barely stand the tunes but I wasn't going to let this stand in the way of my enjoyment of the film. I figured Stanley would amaze me given the creative control one assumes comes with making a "concept film". Expecting the surreal, bizarre and abstract, I was instead given a repetitive, boring and clichéd 50 minute music video. The story concerns a young woman who has lost her memory and is being hypnotized, remembering various (mostly painful) moments of her life that have led he to a bridge, possibly to kill herself. Sounds promising but everything is so dull and predictable. The effects look cheap and the imagery lacks the punch I was hoping for. Worst of all, Stanley cuts to footage of the band "rocking out" or close ups of the singer being a poser and singing into the camera throughout the film. There's a lot of emotion in the songs, performances and story, but it all falls flat for me. Fans of Marillion might be forgiving but those watching this hoping for a dose of Richard Stanley will likely be disappointed. Three stars out of ten for the honest attempt and the odd moment that works.

The haunting video that accompanied the Marillion's eighth studio album. The film tells the fictional story about a confused runaway girl who's picked up by the police when found wandering at the Severn Bridge.

A police psychiatrist tries to unravel the mystery about the girl, who refuses to talk. He learns about her problems in her childhood, when she was abused by her father, her running away, her drug-abusing and more terrible things. Meanwhile almost all the songs of Marillion's album is being played.

Although maybe not the best film in the world, it will definitely leave you with a strange taste in your mouth. It helps if you like the Marillion's music though.