21 April 2016

Why You Should Be Watching... Line of Duty


Words by Tom Newsom

  • It’s not your usual police show. It’s more of a police procedural, only the investigation is against a police officer, with the team trying to outsmart them and prove that they are corrupt. Psychological mystery meets action thriller, you could say, only a lot of it is set in an office. In the first series, this meant one of the team going undercover to see what his colleagues thought of him, trying to uncover and prove the dodgy dealings and secrets, but doing it by the book. For all its chases, stunts and action standoffs, some of its most effective, thrilling scenes are the interview scenes - simply two or three officers against the person (plus their solicitor), but these are lengthy scenes, sometimes up to ten to fifteen minutes, full of verbal sparring and bending of the truth.
  • It’s realistic - sort of. These now famous interview scenes are full of realistic touches. Evidence is always in the form of numbered documents, movements are noted ‘for the tape’, arcane legal jargon is spouted, and quite often the phrase “I request the right to be interviewed by an officer at least one rank superior”. It sounds fussy, much of it is underplayed. Often this means people will jump in and target certain points to say that the show is not realistic, and that some scenes would definitely not happen in a real life investigation. So why have these touches at all - as verisimilitude, for the sake of it? Well, it’s certainly trying to be realistic, as a medical drama would be, say. At the time of the first series they couldn’t get the police to advise on the series, presumably as a show that investigated corrupt police officers would put them in a bad light either way - so they had to find other ways around it. In terms of the world that the show creates, it is meant to feel ordered, solid, realistic. Besides, anybody who disagrees with it because it doesn’t represent the real world should be pointed to a big glowing sign saying that this is TV, live with it.
  • It’s a hit. We’re now up to the third series. The last series hit the headlines, the first run in 2012 broke ratings records for the channel. It hit the ground running, and for good reason - the style of the show hasn’t changed since, keeping the same assured tone.
  • It’s not about the main characters. It’s worth comparing to that other big hit thriller of late, Happy Valley, because the two are doing very different things. That show is more of a personal journey with its characters, where the highlights are the achingly true dramatic moments, even when there’s a crime committed. Line of Duty is doing the opposite - there’s not even a central character or hero, and the private lives of the team that occur throughout the series barely get a look in. Even though they’re not the most interesting thing about it, they are great creations, much of this being down to the regular actors breathing life into every scene. Away from them, the series is built around a change in guest cast as they tackle each case each series - top actors coming in to give it their all. But even they’re at mercy to the fast moving, fast adjusting plot.
  • There’s a lot to catch up with. What appears to be self contained series, throwing out the plot each season for a new one, has turned it something more ongoing. So the question of jumping in fresh at Series 3 - it’s tricky, if not impossible, and there are moments that you will miss out on (also the first episode is soon to run out on iPlayer before the series ends). It’s a funny point, because most episodes makes you feel like you’ve missed something, even if you have seen every minute. After the long opening recaps (like The Killing had), that’s it - they may refer to characters and plots from previous episodes that you hardly noticed, or even the previous series, an impressive two years on if you watch it live - a feat of memory. Based around a series where nobody quite knows the full picture anyway, you can forgive the general lack of exposition!
  • It’s big, bold storytelling. It’s all about the investigation and the all important twists. And unlike some TV shows, here the twists actually change the entire show from episode to episode. It all feels very solid, even when you can’t quite make sense of it - there’s no cheating, nothing too overblown either. That’s part of what makes it so great to watch weekly, is the way it rug-pulls almost every episode and casts everything in a new light, in only a few scenes or gestures. Each episode is made very tense through editing and music, and there’s been some huge cliffhangers, making them a ‘must see’ every week. It’s the way forward, or perhaps a throwback - a boldness of storytelling that is matched by a level of research and detail and thought. It is TV with a kick up the arse.

18 April 2016

Film Review: High-Rise


Review written by Tom Newsom

The most incredible thing about the film High-Rise is that I ever managed to see it in the cinema at all. I had been looking forward to it for months, the project catching my attention back when it was being filmed. But I wasn’t able to pin down a trip to a cinema miles away when it was released back in March. A delayed, limited release at my local cinema has meant I was able to finally go. But not before more than one friend had seen it, and both independently had hated it, with one declaring it “the worst film I have ever seen”.

So of course, that meant I had to go and see it for myself. And I noted afterwards, in the small screening I was in, two people walked out halfway through. Not me though, I loved it, more than I should have done.

I’ve seen Ben Wheatley’s previous two films Sightseers and A Field in England - of which this film feels a piece with - in addition to this work on Doctor Who in 2014. (I’m not itching to see previous film Kill List, I have to say, as it’s meant to be terrifically scary). He has set himself out as a new breed of auteur - or auteurs, working in partnership with screenwriter and co-editor Amy Jump, who has also written, and somehow adapted, High-Rise.

It may have bigger visuals, and a bigger cast and budget than his previous, but it definitely feels like a Ben Wheatley film - a particular strain of darkness, immediately apparent in the first few minutes of the film. It’s blackly comic, often quite funny, with shocks that should hopefully fill you with awe, rather than disgust, and a bold explanation of thematic territory.

It’s adapted from a novel by JG Ballard, an author whose style feels like a perfect fit. It’s dystopian, a sort of science fiction, linking together the darker sides of human nature with the bright new tower block accommodations. The masterstroke with this film was setting it not in a shiny, non-specific future, but in the mid 1970s. It resonates in every aspect of the finished film - it’s incredibly stylish, decadent; the architecture is perfectly bleak and brutalist, and the residents’ trip into barbarism is recognisably, comfortably signposted by the excesses of history - the sexism and hyper masculinity, the flowing alcohol and dissatisfied workers. And, of course, the British class system, which is at the core of the plot: upper class at the top of the skyscraper, lower class down below, arguments and snobbery in the contained space leads to chaos. Setting it in the past makes it less overtly political and easier to swallow, allowing the high style and increasing absurdity.

There is so much in this film to love. The visuals stand out - they usually do for me - not just the style of the design, or Laurie Rose’s high art cinematography, but also the outstanding practical and visual FX on the film, some of the best I’ve seen (the menacing tower itself, the soon to be infamous shot of a head getting dissected). The cast list is amazing, led by Tom Hiddleston’s composed maniac everyman, but a real ensemble. The direction is spot on tonally; the production is quite something considering the scope of the film. The editing is sometimes ambitious in its rhythmic cutting between scenes, but is often invisible. The music felt sparser but vital. It’s a film world to lose yourself in.

As the characters delve deep into the mad, the narrative appears to lose its way also. The ending lacks the focus it needs to be truly satisfying. It’s as if there’s glimpses of a strong plot in there, but it’s buried under the opaque, time (and geography) shifting editing. I could see why some people would come away thinking the film was terrible - for those who didn’t enjoy it, who didn’t get sucked into the film’s hypnotic spell, a more descriptive word would be nonsensical, perhaps even pointless. And that’s aside from the sex and language and increasing violence.

This disconnect is well expressed for me by a sequence which acts as the turning point of the chaos, a frenzied montage of shots, bridging the descent into madness of the central characters. It repeats images from before, whilst leaping forward to the point in time where the residents’ savagery has escalated to even more creative levels. At this stage, the film will either convince or it will leave you way, way behind - as it bridges the huge leap of disbelief suspending required. Have all these people stopped going to their day jobs? Why hasn’t everyone just left? From this point, I found it best to forget the logic.

Even if the film isn’t totally successful, it’s definitely highly memorable - quotable, visual, faintly shocking too. I’ve got no clue how successful an afterlife this film will have - critics’ reviews have been mixed but generally praiseworthy - but it’s definitely a film you should seek out and experience.