This Is Vanity

After a year of being introduced to short films by fellow filmmakers and experiencing second hand the less than impressive intelligence of programmers at various festivals especially Stateside, I decided that I will express my opinions as an audience about various short films I have come across since I do not belong to the short film-making fraternity worldwide. 'This is Vanity' is a short film indeed that pats itself on the back for being shot on 35mm and believes that it is a good short. Sadly, it is not. After watching a plethora of urban British films, the antagonist gang in the story are nothing but clichés without any depth of character or investigation. The two protagonists make for biting into your curiosity but that soon fizzles as the story takes the obvious and 'seen before approach' and culminating into a confusing third act purely for shock value. They are some nice production moments including pyrotechnic effects but ultimately it is a poor story with unimaginative directing and uninteresting characters. If the short of the week, blurb is to be believed then one has to question why give such curative power to a site like Short of the week which clearly does not understand story-telling and is only interested in the production values.

This is going to be a difficult review but THIS IS VANITY is a difficult film to watch . Based upon a true life and tragic case of a woman killing her daughter and killing herself in a fire it's difficult to comment on it without sounding like a parody of a Daily Mail reader . It's the sort of film that the Brits do very well probably because it deals with life in present day Britain where lives can become a living hell due to the actions of a few feral youths and the apathy of the establishment . You might say that the gang of youths don't have much in the way of motivation to being violent vermin but what sort of motives do they need ? We're not talking about " the wretched of the Earth " but the scum of the Earth

In the words of a traditional saying often attributed to 18th Century philosopher Edmund Burke " All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing " and here we see it in action . The violent unrelenting attacks on Angela and her daughter are stomach churning to watch and I see Oliver Goodrum seems to have drawn some criticism on this page in that he's over egging the nauseating pudding . I disagree to an extent . It does seem strange that some violent chav attends church with his parents and this aspect seems merely to exist as a plot device to set up the ending but apart from that Goodrum quite rightly wants you to be bloody angry about the indifference the establishment have towards crime ridden council estates . It took guts for the director in casting an ethnic minority actor in the role of Superintendent Charles who is nothing more that a time server picking up his handsome salary and doing nothing to earn it but that's typical of the hierarchy of the political establishment and law enforcement in this country . Google Ali Dizaei for an extreme example of the sort of plod we get in order for society to celebrate diversity . The police also have a totally meta-physical approach to law enforcement - if they don't investigate crimes then there's no crime being committed . Orwell would be proud . And if you think it's ridiculous no one would help Angela well ask yourself who was helping the Jews during the holocaust ? The defendants at Nuremberg were claiming the same thing " I never heard anything , I never saw anything , I didn't know what was going on " yeah sure you didn't and in the words of George Santayana " Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it "

Rant over

Just seen this short, and my tears haven't dried yet. I thought it was a very good film. It shows what can and does happen anywhere. One reviewer had the nerve to say the mother in the film wasn't a very delicate person!! All I can say to this reviewer is this, If your mentally disabled child was picked on and treated like this by the scum of the earth, and nobody wanted to help--- would you want to be delicate? I don't think so!! I hope the scum who did this were put in prison for the rest of their miserable lives. But my guess is they got a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again.

It says it's a 25 minute video or more than that but I'm getting one second out of a minute to watch it it's not even giving me the full video it looks awesome but I can't see it so I don't know the rest of the story that goes on I'm only getting a few second clip and I don't know how to see the whole thing and that little snippet of one second out of a minute it doesn't make sense I don't want to see advert for it I want to see the whole thing can somebody please bloody tell me how to see the full thing properly it's a shame because if I had seen the full thing I would probably give it 10 out of 10.

A few years ago now there was a case where a woman set fire to her own car over towards Leicester, killing herself and her daughter (who had learning difficulties). The conclusion of the inquest was that, surprise, surprise, the system had failed this woman and that the bullying her and her daughter suffered on their estate was largely ignored or information not adequately shared between bodies to ensure action got taken to protect them. This true story is the basis for this film and it really doesn't pull any punches in the telling. Starting with the dramatic headline, this short flashbacks to the bullying and torment suffered by the family and, while it does this very well, it limits itself at the same time.

The focus is on the events and the failures and how terrible these things were and indeed on this film the film is a hard watch, however it must be said that director Goodrum doesn't really handle the material with much in the way of subtlety or finesse but rather just hits the viewer repeatedly with quickly edited scenes of bullying, then system failure, then bullying, then system failure. It is not a particularly good structure and it isn't helped that the specifics also lack detail or finesse but are rather blunt and obvious; for instances the earnestly failing police man is overly earnest while his boss is really strongly dismissive for the purposes of making the point.

This blunt headlong approach is only really offset by a great central performance from Brown as the mother; she is conflicted, struggling, desperate and very natural throughout – while the film may be blunt, her character is not and she deserves credit for doing such good work while Goodrum doesn't appear to have given her much guidance to be delicate. The supporting roles are fine but prone to cliché due to how little time is spent developing as opposed to just stating. It is a powerful story but it is because of it being a true one, a tragic one and one given a human face by Brown – but it works despite Goodrum in my (uneducated) opinion. The film closes with the suggestion of a follow-up although if it is as lacking in positive touches as this film then I'll skip it.