Film Analysis: Band Frontman Jason Williamson Assumes Role in Sceptical Examination at 90s Rave Culture
The work of Portishead co-founder the musician-producer, this scabrous though slight debut feature casts a critical gaze on the ecstasy-fueled club scene. Venal drug user David (Marc Bessant) initially steals from an unconscious dealer, then in a later recollection tries to burgle his own parents. In no time, he's upside down in the wreckage of his car in a forest – and subject to the wrathful eye of the Woodsman (Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson). Declining to free David, with no time for townies, he is a fractured society personified: “You’re one of those noisy cunts from up on the heath.”
A Shaky Start and Darkly Funny Confrontation
The film begins uncertainly, spending too long on pedantically chronicling David’s attempt to extricate himself from his seatbelt, while clumsily segueing into past scenes of his everyday life. The bigger point – that the ecstasy generation were primarily out for number one – is firmly made. But these vignettes are too thin to properly prime us for what to expect when the Woodsman arrives, enraged after David kills his dog. Nevertheless, a darkly funny standoff takes hold – David desperate to escape; the Poacher withholding his jerrycan of cider, determined to dousing him instead in embittered discourse. Williamson, exuding ponderous menace in the role, is evocative of Michael Smiley.
Stylish Imagery and Music Video Sensibility
Just a single key story turn, but it results in a hilariously staged rampage on the woodland paths that dips close to rural terror. Filmmaker John Minton at last unleashes with his ostentatious visuals: where he was focused intently doing impressionistic closeups of bugs in headlights in the opening part, he now lets rip with the full lysergic grand display, soundtracked to a wild organ version of Ravel’s Boléro. The movie resembles an elongated music video than a complete narrative, but there’s enough strident imagery to suggest that Minton could follow Jonathan Glazer, Garth Jennings and others into successfully graduating from the UK video industry.
Game releases in UK and Irish theaters from November 17.
