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Niamh Algar plays the role of film censor in 1980s Britain that devotes a bit too much to his work in director Prano Bailey-Bond’s first feature film.
Imbued with the gory look, grimy feel and transgressive spirit of the so-called ‘video villains’ of the 1980s, British horror film with a meta spirit Censor offers an admirable pastiche, punctuated with black humor. A first feature film for director Prano Bailey-Bond, whose short film has traveled extensively Mean covered a similar territory, Censor stars next actor Niamh Algar (Quiet with the horses) as a movie censor who notices strange parallels between a horror film she’s evaluating for her work and a tragedy from her own past.
The many jokes and allusions to vintage shockers should amuse fans with long memories and substantial collections of home entertainment. That said, it’s sometimes not easy to tell if the sometimes stilted performances of the peripheral casting and the borderline narrative movements of the cliché are part of the homage or just regular weak technique. It’s possible that there is a bit of Column A and Column B at work here.
But either way, the film’s selection in the popular Midnight installment of Sundance, even as part of a socially distant festival, should give the film an edge in the niche but densely populated category of art horror and self-conscious test, British subsection (see also Peter Strickland’s Fabric, various Ben Wheatley films and so on).
Algar’s protagonist Enid Baines is a hardworking, quiet worker who softens her natural beauty with librarian style and steel-rimmed glasses. She works as an examiner in a quasi-governmental organization which, although unnamed here, is presumably supposed to be either the British Board of Film Censors or the renowned, post-1984 version of the same organization, the British Board of Film Certification. .
A montage of audio and archival TV clips on the opening credits sets the action right around this mid-decade cusp for the Council in the wake of outrage from Tories (and Tories, as in the conservative party) and right-wing moralists, upwards. in arms over horror or heavy movies like Driller Killer (preview here), I spit on your grave and Cannibal holocaust. Self-proclaimed moral guardians like Mary Whitehouse have accused these “video villains” of modeling violent and mimetic behavior that could corrupt young people, a risk heightened by the new availability of the VHS format which has brought movies home, where children could. access them unattended. As a result, some of the more extreme films were not allowed to circulate on video and had to be reviewed by reviewers who suggested significant cuts to tone down the content. As a result, Enid spends most of his working hours watching VHS movies with co-workers, a remote control in hand freezing images for further examination and writing notes like “the eyes must go!”
But when she’s tasked with reviewing a movie called Don’t go to church, directed by fringe photo specialist Frederick North (Adrian Schiller) and distributed by sleazy producer / distributor Doug Smart (Michael Smiley), Enid is deeply shaken by what she sees. The opening scene – in which two girls play near and enter a cabin in the woods, with one of them eventually dying – has details that stir memories of Enid’s own traumatic experience there. was 20 when his little sister Nina disappeared. Woods. Enid was with her at the time but can’t remember what exactly happened, and Nina was never found. Her parents (played by Clare Holman and Andrew Havil) recently decided to have Nina declared legally dead in order to “move on”.
Enid cannot cope with the decision, and the film suggests that this legal step is hastening a psychological tangle for the censor, perhaps made worse by the relentless exposure to cinematic violence through his work. Like Atom Egoyan Adjuster (1991), who presented Arsinée Khanjian as a censor obsessed with pornography, Censor postulates that repeated viewing of prohibited material, even by someone believed to be impartial and employed to judge such work professionally, could create an unhealthy appetite for what they are supposed to regulate.
It’s almost a variation on the old killer trick really is the cop himself, and Censor isn’t subtle in sowing early clues that Enid might be going mad – even before she develops an obsessive conviction that a red-haired actor in the North and Smart movies really is her lost sister ever since. long, now grown up and seemingly eager to relive the trauma through drama.
Once the final credits roll, Bailey-Bond and Anthony Fletcher’s storyline looks a bit skinny on the merits and misses a chance to really binge on the meaty topic of ’80s censorship culture wars, a topic that resonates. strangely now. However, the imitation of vintage 16mm stock and the ominous, frozen lighting of the era’s horror traits are exquisitely executed by DP Annika Summerson, working closely with production designer Paulina Rzeszowska and costume designer Saffron Cullane. . Between them, they get the palette of dull beige fabric, fluorescent highlights and fake scarlet blood over the period.
Meanwhile, Tim Harrison’s sound design, full of weird crackles and audible howls, bleeds perfectly with Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s original score of synth growls and sustained John Carpenter chords. Bailey-Bond and the producers have assembled an excellent team to deliver a compelling ersatz time capsule. It’s just a shame that there is nothing more surprising or original locked inside.
Location: Sundance Film Festival (midnight)
Interpretation: Niamh Algar, Nicholas Burns, Vincent Franklin, Sophia La Porta, Adrian Schiller, Michael Smiley, Clare Holman, Andrew Havill, Felicity Montagu, Danny Lee Wynter, Clare Perkins, Guillaume Delaunay, Richard Glover, Beau Gadsdon, Amelie Child-Villiers
Production: A BFI, Film4 & Ffilm Cymru Wales presentation of a Silver Salt Films production in association with Kodak Motion Picture & Cinelab London
Director: Prano Bailey-Bond
Screenwriters: Prano Bailey-Bond, Anthony Fletcher
Producer: Helen Jones
Executive Producers: Andy Starke, Ant Timpson, Kim Newman, Naomi Wright, Lauren Dark, Ollie Madden, Daniel Battsek, Mary Burke, Kimberley Warner
Director of Photography: Annika Summerson
Production designer: Paulina Rzeszowska
Designer costume: Saffron Cullane
Editor: Mark Towns
Music: Emilie Levienaise-FarrouchSound designer: Tim Harrison
Actors: Nanw Rowlans
Sales: Photos of protagonists
84 minutes
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