Gypo

Just when it seems that cinema has descended yet again into the deep abyss of zero plot combined with tons of special effects performed by pretty boys and pop tarts with no acting abilities whatsoever to disguise the fact that it is trash, something new comes along to uplift the entire sorry state of modern film and restore the discerning audience's faith in the true art of the cinema. I attended just such a performance at the 24th August 2005 premiere screening of Gypo in the UK at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) and found it to be a powerful dramatic piece (the first British one) from the recent Dogme genre of film making. According to its manifesto, Dogme rules reject special effects, scripted and formulaic acting, and films all scenes in ambient light to make the actors rather than post- production additions drive the plot. Told from the points of view of the wife Helen, the husband Paul and the Czech immigrant Tasha, the story of the disintegration of a working-class British family from Margate while encountering newly-arrived refugee immigrants, makes for some gritty, gripping entertainment. As the film covers the same events from three differing points of view, the plot is gradually fleshed out and brought to a most surprising conclusion. Nothing is as it originally appears. Be prepared to be surprised and absorbed completely in the unfolding, many-layered story.

Pauline McLynn, usually known for her comedic acting in the UK, gives a tour de force drama performance as the frustrated, ineffective-feeling wife Helen. One feels her frustration when her husband and teenage daughter use her in various ways and make fun of her attempts to find her inner creative self in sculpture classes. When she meets Tasha, we are allowed to see her caring and compassionate side in reaching out for those less fortunate still. Paul McGann portrays the simmering angry, repressed, frustrated breadwinner who hates change yet despises his limited, impoverished, meaningless existence of doing carpet installation day jobs. Alternating between stony silence and lashing out in bigoted epithets at "Gypos" whom he feels (incorrectly) take his jobs, McGann portrays a total bastard with whom one may still feel some sympathy. Perhaps, he might have filled some of the silent scenes with more lines, but his performance was generally quite solid. Relative acting newcomer Chloe Sirene, actually London-born, also gives a fantastic and completely convincing performance as the Romany Czech refugee, Tasha, struggling against ethnic hatred and pursuing male relatives to gain British citizenship, independence, and find her way in an impoverished and hostile area. Even though a teen the age of Helen's daughter, she shows great strength and resilience in the face of great adversity. The supporting cast also give very solid performances that add texture to the developing story line.

Hopefully, this excellent film will make its way into American theaters, at the very least the Art Theater circuit, in the next year. This deserving film definitely should be added to everyone's must-see list.

Gypo (offensive slang for 'Gypsy') is a film that connects with the audience on the issue of racial tensions in a way that few films can. It does so by use of great British talent but more controversially using the 'Dogme' stylistic method of film-making. It explodes myths about refugees and exposes attitudes that need to be dealt with. It tells three sides to the same story, each with an equal intensity, and makes us care.

The Dogme experiment was invented as a backlash tool against the formulaic approach of Hollywood movies where anything can be 'made' to look real given enough money and special effects to trick the audience. Dogme tries to go back to the basics of art in film by a self-imposed discipline of ten 'rules' known as the Vow of Chastity. These include no added effects (such as added music, sudden time and location shifts, superficial action such as murders) and using only hand held cameras and basic lighting. The point is to force the attention onto the abilities of the actors especially and not let the director off the hook with quick-fix technical solutions or dazzlements. (For the complete 'Vow', go here: http://www.dogme95.dk/the_vow/vow.html) Working under that sort of pressure, very many Dogme attempts have been failures, but the successes have been very noticeable. The sense of 'reality' is so acute that a relatively minor plot development can have immense impact.

At one point as I watched the film, an understated emotion just hit me hard in the chest and brought tears to my eyes: one of the characters (Helen) has become friends with some Romany refugees who are being subjected to racial abuse. Making light of it ("They were going cheap in Asda"), she gives one of them a phone as a present, playing it down so as not to seem overprotective. I thought: I don't care if this is fiction or reality, that is a very real, poignant, caring, loving emotion she has just expressed. The film had connected with me in a way that went beyond suspension of disbelief, and it was worthwhile and uplifting to experience. A similar reaction happened as the plot explored more intense passions.

Helen is in marriage to Paul that could be described a long-term but loveless, "Don't wake the baby up," he says to her gently as he takes his conjugal rights on her - against her will. Helen feels used. Paul is at his wits end from poverty in spite of hard work. He blames refugees for taking people's jobs (even though he doesn't think it below him to use them when he sees fit). Helen feels she just clears up the mess for everyone else, including her unmarried daughter and granddaughter. Her life has no point.

Tasha, an attractive Romany Czeck refugee who wants to better herself, comes into their life, hoping to get a passport, citizenship and freedom – things everyone else takes for granted. She is also in mortal fear of her Czeck husband and brothers who might come looking for her.

I watched Gypo at the UK Premiere and so was very fortunate to be able to speak to the cast and crew briefly. I asked one of the actors if working under Dogme had been different. There was an intensity in his voice as he recalled it – he said, you can't fake anything! Normally there is a point in the script where it might say, 'you killed someone' but of course everyone knows it's not real because people don't actually get killed in films. With Dogme, if you really can't do it, it isn't done. The effect is the audience buys in to what is being presented with a lot more trust. (All of the script in Gypo is improvised, although this is not a requirement of Dogme technique.) I asked Paul McGann (who plays Paul) further what advice he would give an actor planning to make a Dogme movie. He replied, "Get plenty of sleep!" then added on a more thoughtful note, "and have an open mind." Dogme looks pretty weird, but with results like Gypo it is hard to knock it, so have an open mind till you've seen it.

Gypo produces a remarkably convincing look at a dysfunctional working class British family, with its goodness and badness, and it made me feel proud to be in a country that is producing such high quality, riveting cinema (and on such an incredibly tiny budget!) It unites art, gripping entertainment and responsible social comment in a way that few films aspire to and many less achieve. Director Jan Dunn cares about making movies in a way that shows integrity to the medium, responsibility within society, and a duty to give the audience every penny's worth of its ticket money. Her enthusiasm and skill provide a role model for aspiring filmmakers to emulate. For all its subject matter, Gypo is one of the most moving and joyous films I've seen recently and probably the best British film I've seen this year.

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.

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.