How to end a movie

Compare and contrast: ‘A Separation’ and ‘The Well Digger’s Daughter’. Two more contrasting films it would be difficult to imagine. Iranian social realism v French romantic nostalgia. True grit or soft focus. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both. I emerged from A Separation physically and emotionally drained; I came out of The Well Digger’s Daughter with a smile on my lips and a rosy glow on my cheeks. They are both good films and A Separation is possibly a great one. In the informal post screening debates (one of the best bits of Borderlines) there were some who said that WDD was ‘too romantic’. This is a bit like saying that grass is too green or that Ronseal does what it says on the tin. Of course it’s too romantic. It’s French! It’s romantic! What did you expect?
Where WDD may have missed a trick was in the ending, where they could have added an element of sad wistfulness without ditching any of the romanticism. WDD has now finished its run so I think I can reveal that the opportunity missed was the rather risible return of the war hero, dapper and unlined, having survived crashing his aircraft in flames behind enemy lines. In the risibility stakes, this is admittedly pretty poor fare. The moment in ‘Downton Abbey’ where the war hero leaps athletically from his wheelchair when his feeble fiancée is unable to carry the weight of a tea tray – now that’s what I call risibility. You could win a BAFTA with that.
So WDD may score modestly, risibility wise, but the fact remains that the film was just coming to a satisfactory end, with the reconciliation of divided families and fathers and daughters, when the hero returns to tie up loose ends and ensure that everyone lives happily ever after. Leave the lad in some foreign field that is forever Provence I say. The End. Fin. It’s a wrap.
Take a lesson from A Separation. No romance here, or easy answers, or you could argue no answers at all. But they knew how to end the film. It won’t spoil the film to tell you that there is a heartbreaking choice to be made at the end. After two hours of ambiguity, I (as the man in seat D5) wanted to know the answer. The movie director in me (as if) was screaming ‘end the film NOW!’ And right on queue, the credits rolled……

First impressions

The 2012  Borderlines experience began for me on Friday 24th February with The Well-Digger's Daughter starring and directed by Daniel Auteuil. The lush setting of fields, streams and the tree lined country roads of the South of France forms the background to a familiar story of young love awakened, thwarted and finally reconciled.  The most convincing relationship, however, is not that between the lovers, but between father and daughter with some light relief provided by family friend, Felipe.  Small town prejudices are explored while the start of the First World War forms a wider backdrop, made evident by the mobilisation of the local men.

The studio at the Courtyard theatre was packed out for the first afternoon of the Festival while the bar area was too crowded to walk through!  Also filled to the rafters, was our second film Resistance which was being shown in Moccas Village Hall where numbers meant that cars had to be parked in a field and doors were shut at 7.30 regardless of anybody waiting outside.  The Village Hall bar was busy too and after showing a film about Arts Alive and Flicks in the Sticks and four very impressive short films made by "Same but Different" there was an interval to allow people to refill their glasses and to buy ice creams.

Resistance was of particular interest to a rural Herefordshire audience who could recognise pubs and cottages where the scenes were filmed - not to mention the familiar countryside of the Olchon Valley and Llantony.   Those who had not read the Owen Sheers novel may have found the plot difficult to follow, but the visual impact was striking and the slow pace gave the film an almost hypnotic, poetic quality.  The "what if" story of a German invasion of Britain in 1944 was intriguing and was illustrated by numerous flash-backs of, for example, the Russian Front. The characters of the women left to work the farms while their men joined the Resistance were very well drawn, while the central love story and the ending were left ambiguous - which some of the audience found disappointing.  A neighbour told me that he found the film unconvincing because the Germans were too nice while others mentioned that they found the pace of the film too slow.

Both of these films were set in rural areas where the scenery acted almost as one of the main protagonists.  My next Borderlines experience will be My week with Marilyn which should provide an interesting contrast!

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