Dead Man's Shoes

Melmoth

Bruxist
Shane Meadows takes the British Social Realist film, and grafts on the most basic cliches of the Horse Opera
(lone avenger, idiot boy) to produce something stylistically pointless and morally incoherent. A travesty.
 

Melmoth

Bruxist
Ok Mein kind. I think the film is an example of how the hybridization of genre
can result not in the creation of something new and exciting, but merely leeches whatever it was
that was interesting out of the elements from which it draws.

Secondly, the viewer is dragooned into identifying with the Paddy Considine figure, who is a vicious, damaged, god-botherer. One example of this is the crane shot at the end, which wavers out across the valley in an obnoxiously sentimental way, as if the viewer is occupying the point of view of Considine's characters soul as it leaves his body.

(Also an embarrassingly formulaic tripping scene)

I could go on.
 

mms

sometimes
Ok Mein kind. I think the film is an example of how the hybridization of genre
can result not in the creation of something new and exciting, but merely leeches whatever it was
that was interesting out of the elements from which it draws.


ok this int going to be perfect but this is why i disagree..
on a purely sitting thru the thing I think the hybridisation works quite naturally, the supernatural element which is introduced at the first climax (not trying to give it away) relives and confirms the growing worry and horror, the guessing game that goes on throughout the film. I also don't think the film was developed to come out as an intentional hybrid

I also thing as an excercise in empathy it works on the same horrific level, there is literally no one in the film to fully empathise with, as you said the paddy constantine figure is a total psycho, even more so when the truth about his brother comes out, the others are pathetic scumbags, it's like cheering for the avenger in say i spit on your grave, total flatline, or even the character in mike leigh's naked to an extent.

any feeling for him you may feel is at total odds with his actions,which even he realises at the end are inexcusable, the only person I really felt empathy for is the brother which is perhaps the hardest thing to do because the things he went thru are total and complete degradation on every level.

I did however recognise it all, all those small time gangsters, that boredom and that environment, even the devils church, there is a place near me which is meant to be a church built backwards, kids bring other kids up there on acid etc .. so I emphathised with the ambient misery.

i don't think it's a pretty film but there is nothing bad about that, it's extremley confrontational and i think that's a good thing, it's a bitter pill to swallow and i'm pretty sure it was partially inspired by personal experiences.

anyway i think we disagree here :)
 

Melmoth

Bruxist
I recognised it too, absolutely, it conjures up that gruelling small town perversity in a way that I haven`t seen before in British film, though Leigh's Naked is a good reference point. But then the slasher/ western element betrays that achievement in my view: its a cop out, style subverts content. Anyway, its a film
worth disagrreing about which is something ;) .
 
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