Powerless

I first saw Powerless at the Borderlines Film Festival and had no idea what to expect. I've seen some outstanding independent films in my time but with a budget of just £5,000 and a cast of non-professional actors, Matt's film could have gone either way. I was in for a shock. Powerless is an alarmingly consuming movie, executed with dramatic effect through a potent mixture of fluid camera, documentary-style narrative, unfeined acting and a complex web of challenging themes and messages. Powerless follows the isolated life of the Johnson siblings, a family struggling to cope with the tragic death of their father and their new life in a remote part of Pembrokeshire. But the family face an even greater test of strength when they learn, in a chilling radio broadcast, of a horrific terrorist attack resulting in the complete loss of power to Britain. 20 miles from the nearest village and terrified to leave their home, the family must put aside their differences and work together to survive. And it doesn't end there. The story is crawling with twists and turns, like the sudden emergence of the Johnsons' older brother after his unspeakable ordeal in London, the disappearance of their friend and guardian Tom who ventured out for help, and the uncertainty about whether their mother is still alive. It's the work of a budding cinematic genius. Not only did Matt direct and produce Powerless, but co-wrote the screenplay, executed the editing and cinematography, wrote some of the films soundtrack and co-starred as Tom. When you watch the film, you wouldn't know the filming was cleverly divided between three very contrasting settings. The black and white scenes are shot in an old railway tunnel in Matt's hometown of Shifnal while the opening footage of political protests were filmed in London in just a few hours. The majority of the movie was shot in and around the cast's house in Pembrokeshire and took just three weeks to film. Powerless also stars a real family, the Wilkins', whom Matt has known since his days at Swansea University.

When the lights went out overhead in the Cardiff film festival screening of powerless I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be ironic if there was a power cut…now?" Thankfully I got to watch the whole film without interruption.

Matt Daniels and Seth Wilkins script charts the survival of some well drawn characters in a somewhat familiar mold – a broken family in a time of crisis. Post 9/11 terrorism being the crisis maybe, but this was premiered before the 7/7/05 London attacks, pre-dating the reality of new terror attack on British soil. This can only add to the films relevance and validity.

Powerless however is not a study of terrorism so much as it is an exploration of a family under intense pressure.

Spielberg's War of the worlds and Matt Daniels' Powerless have a few similarities then in that respect (Daniel's came first), but where Spielberg chose to focus on a broken family in a time of disaster to 'see how they run, when we shoot at them with all we've got', Daniels chose a similar subject and focus without all the comforts of ILM's wizardry. This is by no means an action film, this film is about our dependencies and independence, our comforts and our complacency, our strengths and frailties. It's about surviving. The result is a film that still captivates in many ways. A much closer view of real people in a more credible situation.

Powerless, then, weighs heavily on its complex narrative for intrigue and mystery, but leans even more heavily on its young actors who bear the weight well, almost like a real family....wait a sec! (as the credits roll you'll be surprised to realize that the majority of the cast are actually brothers and sisters and most other people in the movie are related to them also!). On their first outing on the big screen they prove that they can act and act well. They effectively transmit the claustrophobia and emotions of being stranded in such a way that you cannot help but begin to imagine yourself trying to handle life without electricity. The overall effect is unnerving, believable, credible, and the ending is complex and interesting! I was well impressed!

Powerless is fueled by a metabolism of a director's love of films, the sheer confidence of its actors and a twisting plot. We should take pride in the fact that independent filmmakers can come up with this with only basic tools. Don't get me wrong, the film is not perfect and yes at times the inexperience shows itself, but the enigma of Powerless is not in its perfection; the triumph of this movie is that finally outside of the wasted millions of Hollywood dollars, here are some pounds well spent on a topic that's ever closer to home and was made at home.

That's why everyone stood and applauded at the end of the Cardiff Screening. A solid debut from a promising director. Well done.

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