New Season Online
For our July film we’ve chosen The Angels’ Share (2012), a Ken Loach/Paul Laverty comedy with some characteristically acerbic criticisms about poverty and its corrosive effects on under-educated, jobless young men who have little prospect of social advancement. In terms of film-making technique, Loach does what he has always done – he films his mercurial characters from a distance, tracking their spontaneous behaviour almost as though he were a wild-life observer, a method he readily acknowledges one of his earliest cinematographers learned from the acclaimed Czech cameraman, the late Miroslav Ondricek.
As before, we’ve produced a Programme Note for the film which is attached to this Newsletter, with July 29th at 7.30pm being set for a Zoom meeting to exchange your impressions of it. If you wish to partake in this event, please access the link in the Programme Note for the meeting particulars. (You will of course need to have the Zoom ‘app’ installed on your computer.)
For those who wish to send in reactions individually, please Email info@abfilms.org.uk with your score (A → E) and comments. These reactions and comments will be published on the ABCD Website (https://abfilms.org.uk) and/or included in the Zoom discussion relevant to the film. You will also find the comments for June’s film Uncle Vanya on the Website.
Reviewing the film for The Guardian at its Cannes premiere, Peter Bradshaw wrote “[The] film is under no illusions about long-term youth unemployment in 2012 [but] finds some light[ness], or perhaps it is rather […] experimenting with a lighter way of addressing the issue. Robbie and his mates are no angels but the film finds a way of giving them something that real life can’t or won’t – a chance”
The film is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.