More on The Hunt

‘The Audience Recommend[ed] . . .’ The Hunt this year, though not many of them came to see it shown again on Tuesday evening at the Courtyard. Maybe they’d already seen it. A shame, because it was one of the most powerful and thought provoking films I’ve seen in the festival or for a long while for that matter, and it dealt in a very economical, finely paced but strongly affecting way with a hugely relevant and important issue – the rush to judgment on highly charged issues such as child abuse. It was set in a small community, but the urgency with which lifelong friends embrace an almost chance suggestion is eerily familiar to some current media reporting. Strong stuff, beautifully made – unfortunately marred by the effect of a digital disc that defaulted to the ‘long thin format with no subtitles’ beloved of everyone’s home DVD player at a critical moment as the hostility erupted into open violence. Not what you want, but a great film nonetheless.

Richard Heatly