Shane Meadows - the Euro Star of directing! (Somers Town (DVD))

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Somers Town (DVD)
Date:	26/10/09 (76 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Solid film stylist

Disadvantages: A little dull

So, after the cult success of the brilliant Dead Mans Shoes and solid rental returns for This is England, British director Shane Meadows returns with Somers Town, this a little treat from his backers who have given him some money to indulge in his passion - short films, Somers Town just 68 minutes long. Originally this commission was supposed to be a publicity film for the new Eurostar service from the refurbished St Pancreas Station and they wanted Meadows to do some sort of infomercial. But he didn't fancy making shorts about kids and families waving on trains and so walked away. But when his life long writing buddy Paul Frazer had another idea of a script around the station development, the Somers Town deal was struck and a completely new style of commercial film collaboration was invented. Meadows is a unique director and this is a unique experiment. If this was The Truman Show then he is the product and this is the placement.

The unassuming and very down-to-earth Meadows has made over 100 'shorts' in his life and I think it's fair to say the most autobiographical director out there, his home town of Nottingham and that unplaced but notable accent always present in his often charismatic and warmly funny urban movies. There's none of his great school friend Paddy Considines broad Nott's vernacular this time around but the cheeky little Thomas Turgoose returns from This is England. Meadows, the reluctant son of a Nottingham hard man, enjoys telling his life story and experiences in his movies and it's a method that works really well for him, drawing humour like water from the well from surprising subjects and scenes. Who can forget the gormless drug dealer trying to shoot the axe-wielding Considine from a Citroen Diane sun roof with a World War two rifle!

-Cast-

Piotr Jagiello ... Marek
Ireneusz Czop ... Mariusz
Perry Benson ... Graham
Thomas Turgoose ... Tomo
Elisa Lasowski ... Maria

-Plot-

15-year-old 'Tomo' (Thomas Turgoose) has jumped on the train to London from Nottingham to get away from his parents and is now kicking around the capital before facing his first night on the streets.

16-year-old Poles Marek (Piotr Jagiello) and his dad Mariusz (Ireneusz Czop) are in England to work, his dad helping to build the new Eurostar platform at the nearby St Pancreas. Tomo is a cock confident young thing and soon befriends Marek in a local café after teasing him about some photos Marek has taken of the beautiful French waitress who works there. It's not made clear why the beautiful and elegant 25-year-old Maria chooses to work in a roughhouse greasy spoon but she does and the sensitive Marek fancies her. He loves taking photos with his aging SLR camera and she agrees to the romance with his 35mm lens.

The two boys shouldn't really be friends but soon are, Tomo surreptitiously sleeping in Mareks room behind his dads back, the boys getting up to mischief in the daytime when he's at work. Tomo likes to steel laundry whilst Marek just wants to win Maria's heart.

They accrue some pin money to do just that when they hook up with wide boy Graham (Perry Benson), an overweight chancer who takes a shine to the lads and exploits them for cheap labour to do odd jobs. But Mareks dad knows nothing of his son's new friend and growing delinquency and is not best pleased when he finds out.
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-The Conclusion-

The expectation is building on Meadows to be the next Danny Boyle and deliver the U.K another best directing Oscar, alongside other British luminaries like the now deceased Anthony Minghella and Sam Mendez. He has the talent and backing and makes intelligent and realistic movies; his 'improv' style of film making mixing Mike Leigh's unwavering working-class struggle and grime with his own brand of urban humour a real treat. If you haven't seen Dead Mans Shoes you really should.

Londoners will know Somers Town as the real place it is, a small area of central London sandwiched between three major stations, the subtle undercurrent of the movie that once St Pancreas is modernised the surrounding tower blocks will also go and be turned into swanky new apartments for city boys to whiz into Europe. The people in poor areas of London don't seem to want the well paid building jobs on offer so Eastern Europeans can come over on the very same Eurostar and do the very jobs and trades that increase that migrant labour flow on these new transport links. It's an interesting narrative but not fully exploited, unlike the Poles working their today for minimum wage.

The film itself is ok and very Meadows, his free wobbly camera style and malleable improvised script always engaging. A lot of the script is outline only and that can produce some great lines. The idea of the hard working Poles rebooting a benefit ridden city in that role reversal way is certainly topical and the two Polish actors are very good, some of this subtitled. Eurostars money gets to see the station development in a good light (no cheap labor here!) and Paris jemmied in to complete the commercial. But its no 'This is England' and the exploration of the political message on immigration is softened because of the Eurostar side, more of a mood piece if the truth be told.

It's not a film in the traditional sense and should have stayed a half-hour short on TV if you ask me. But if you want to see Meadows obvious talent and this new kind of film making involving corporate sponsorship and branding then put the kettle on and take a look. I guarantee you Meadows will deliver an Oscar for this fine country that he loves to tell us stories about and it will be one day soon.

-Special Features-

There is a very long Q&A with Meadows and his production and writing team from the London film festival. Its fun at first but just goes on and on...

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Imdb.com scores it 7.0 out of 10.0 (1,435 votes)
Retail-Amazon £9.38 and £7.98 Blue-Ray? (The film is shot in black and white)
5 films for £5 weekly deal in Blockbusters (high street)
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Dooyoo movie news!

Two cool films to see on terrestrial TV this week (and so review) are 'Crank', ITV1 at 10:30 pm tonight and 'The Host', C4, 12:55 am on Sunday morning for Halloween. Crank is Jason Statham's tongue in-cheek violently funny action thriller that gives the Cockney some real action kudos and cool, and a film certainly unique in the genre, a must for the boys and the shirt is never on for the girls. Whilst The Host is the Korean B-Movie answer to Cloverfield and some say superior version with a much sneakier river monster and smarter script in downtown Seoul, the tag line: 'There's something on the bridge. What is that? The clincher!

Set your videos guys!

Summary: Meadows at work