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Eternal Beauty : A Bold Representation of Mental Illness That Goes Beyond Dark Comedy

Benjamin Hollis — 2020-10-09T13:23:42Z

Craig Roberts' « Eternal Beauty » is a bold representation of mental illness that breaks with cinematic tradition, adding a rare level of nuance and compassion to an often misrepresented topic. Sally Hawkins stars as Jane, an isolated woman struggling with depression, schizophrenia and an at times toxic environment - 80s English suburbia. A chance encounter and whirlwind relationship with fellow patient Mike (David Thewlis) appears to grant her a new lifeline but instead serves only to reignite her underlying trauma of previously being jilted at the altar. Those expecting a dark comedy will be surprised to find that « Eternal Beauty » delivers more weight than expected, making it a tough watch at times, but a rewarding one in the end.

A striking feature of the film is its division into different phases, each drawing the picture towards another genre, while adding depth to Jane's character. It starts as a slightly unhinged comedy with Jane butting against a bizarre, drab mental health clinic and buying herself her own Christmas presents that she wants her cold, disconnected relatives to pay for. Billie Piper shines as the reliably comic but callous younger sister and a rather stuck up Penelope Wilton is convincing as the cruel, selfish mother.

But when Jane loses her medication, she spirals out of control. The voices grow louder and as her behaviour veers into psychotic paranoia, the film's atmosphere darkens to produce some chilling, almost horror-worthy scenes. Only then does her romance with Mike begin, brightening the film and eventually leading to a final, more enlightened sequence of self-discovery.

This unusual, alternating structure succeeds as an insight into Jane's complex state of mind as she wrestles with her traumas. But it inevitably makes for difficult viewing, particularly in the first half of the story. Here the cast, striking visuals and a surprisingly dramatic soundtrack play their part, holding our attention throughout. Comedy also provides a common thread, with some unexpectedly funny lines interrupting sombre stretches and injecting some much-needed comic relief. For instance there's an almost laugh-out-loud moment when Jane prematurely pronounces her mother dead, only for her to clarify that she's « just resting her eyes ».

To conclude, a heavy-going first half eventually gives way to a fulfilling story. Although Jane's romance with Mike is billed as the narrative focus, it ends up feeling more like a bump in the road on her journey towards healing and empowerment. This, along with some other clever narrative flourishes, builds a far more sophisticated, authentic and memorable picture than you'd expect from a mere indie dark comedy.

Craig Roberts' ETERNAL BEAUTY starring Sally Hawkins, David Thewlis, Billie Piper, Morfydd Clark, Penelope Wilton and Alice Lowe will be released in cinemas in Scotland at the DCA Dundee from 2 Oct & the GFT from 9 Oct, as well as on demand from 2 Oct.

Three New Documentaries To Watch Now

Benjamin Hollis — 2020-04-01T10:48:37Z

Documentary Weekly creator Benjamin Hollis shares his top three doc picks available to watch online.

Cunningham – Curzon Home Cinema, Amazon Prime, iTunes

Trailer

As unfortunate and disruptive as the Covid-19 outbreak has been for the film industry, the resulting boom of online releases will be welcomed by cinephiles around the world. On March 20th, Alla Kovga's highly anticipated « Cunningham » joined the growing list of films forced into an early online release.

An ode to legendary dance choreographer Merce Cunningham, the film blends artistic performance with archival footage, interviews and excerpts from letters to provide a fascinating account of his phenomenal career that spanned the best part of the 20th century.

But it's the dazzling modern-day interpretations of Cunningham's dances that will keep you watching. These are beautiful, modern, trance-like performances enhanced with cutting-edge camera work and breathtaking sets, whether shot in the courtyard of a French chateau or in the midst of a pine forest.

Despite being originally slated as a 3D cinematic experience, this documentary and dance performance hybrid serves well as a refreshing escape from isolation via the small screen.

Midnight Family – Curzon Home Cinema, Amazon Prime, iTunes

Trailer

The Ochoa family operates a private ambulance in Mexico City, where only 45 publicly funded ambulances watch over 9,000,000 people. That's one ambulance per 200,000 citizens. The Ochoas help to fill the gap, saving lives as they go, but they don't do it out of charity, they do it for a living.

After befriending the Ochoas on his walk to work, director Luke Lorentzen joined them in the back of their van for a night. Gobsmacked by what he witnessed, he grabbed his filming gear and lived out of the ambulance for 6 months. The result is a thrilling first-person account that charts not only the shocking cases they come across, but also their increasingly desperate financial plight and the tough decisions they're led to make.

Indeed, despite patrolling wealthier areas of the city, the Ochoas are not paid often. Even when they beat rival ambulances to the scene, many patients won't, or simply can't, pay them. On top of that, they're alert to marauding police, more likely to request a bribe than to help them get paid.

“Midnight Family” inevitably asks a lot of questions of the system it portrays, most of which go unanswered. But as debate rages on healthcare systems in both the US and the UK, the film serves as a gut-wrenching insight into what a fully privatised system can look like.

Tell Me Who I Am - Netflix

Trailer:

Although not as recent a release as the previous two, “Tell Me Who I Am” can't be missed. This is one of 2019's best documentaries with a truly unbelievable story at its heart. If you've already heard about it, you've probably been told of how disturbing it is, but don't let that put you off.

After falling into a coma, 18-year-old Alex Lewis wakes up in hospital. He recognises his identical twin brother Marcus but is confused by the anxious woman beside him and unable to recall his own name. Marcus starts by reintroducing Alex to his own mother and showing him how to tie his shoelaces but before long, he starts re-writing his brother's past, omitting a horrific childhood that Marcus himself doesn't have the strength to relive.

Upon making a peculiar discovery in his thirties at his recently deceased mother's house, Alex discovers the brothers' secret. But Marcus refuses to tell the whole story, leaving Alex with a gaping hole in his memories and identity.

Twenty years later, in the process of making their documentary, the brothers are seen together on screen for the first time in a surreal and cathartic unscripted climax nearly 40 years in the making. Finally, Marcus is able to tell his brother, and us, what happened all those years ago.

The Ponds by Patrick McLennan & Samuel Smith - coming at Art House Crouch End

Benjamin Hollis — 2019-11-07T21:30:52Z

“The Ponds” meets the Londoners whose lives have been changed by outdoor swimming

Visit Hampstead Heath in North London at the summer's peak and you'll see hundreds of sun-seeking locals swimming in the park's ponds. Although that quintessential image will be familiar to many Londoners, few know that the ponds continue to draw regulars throughout the winter.

“The Ponds” is a yearlong study of the motley crew that religiously swims in the Hampstead Heath ponds every day, come rain, shine or even ice. The film explores the rich tapestry of individuals who share this particular obsession, all of them with a different story to tell.

One thing have in common is a reliance on the ponds as a mental health stalwart, helping them deal with depression, anxiety and even grief. Increasingly, Londoners including myself are being drawn to the idea of outdoor swimming for this very reason.

A keen outdoor swimmer himself, Co-Director Patrick Mclennan discussed the topic with us and gave us some tips on how to get involved.

What drew you to the Hampstead Heath ponds as the subject for your film?

The Ponds was conceived while I was having a swim at the Parliament Hill Lido. Myself and co-producer Samuel Smith were working on another project that was a little too ambitious, so we decided to find another, more straightforward story. The idea of capturing life over 12 months at these unusual urban swimming ponds was a simple but striking idea. I was surprised it hadn't already been done.
I'm a keen outdoor swimmer and that was another wonderful thing about the project. I was creating a story out of a personal passion. It rarely felt like work; well, at least not while we were filming.

Did anything surprise you during filming?

A lot surprised me about it to be honest. Mainly how willing the swimmers were to tell their stories. The cold water is like a truth serum. People can't help but be honest after they've had a swim in freezing water.

Every swimmer seems to have a story, is there one that struck you in particular?

Everyone has a unique relationship with the ponds and with outdoor swimming, so they all have stories to tell. But I think if I had to narrow it down to one person it would be Carrie, the lady we met when she was having just her second swim after a double mastectomy and reconstruction. What she had been through was awful, but the pond was crucial to her survival and she articulated it so well.

Patrick McLennan

There's been increased research into cold water swimming's capacity to reduce mental health problems. Does this come as a surprise to you?

I know researchers like Dr Mark Harper, of Brighton and Sussex University Hospital, are trying to fund research into it, but I think most of the evidence is still anecdotal.
But it's obvious how it helps people with anxiety, depression, addictions and pretty much every condition. For me it has the power to transform my mood in the space of a couple of minutes. When it's really cold you can be a bit grumpy when you get in, but soon emerge smiling.

The science remains unproven as to what it is exactly about swimming in cold water that helps people. Do you have your own ideas?

The freezing sensation, which feels a bit like burning when it's really cold, and which you get used to surprisingly quickly, soon becomes a kind of tingling feeling. When you get out of cold water (and by that I mean 8°C and below) you may be shivering, but you have this wonderful tingling sensation and your body feels like it's glowing. People with arthritis tell me the cold water numbs their pain and gives them respite from their condition. From a psychological point of view, cold water focuses the mind and body like nothing else. You're not thinking of your problems when you're swimming; you're just concentrating on how you're feeling in the water, so it can break the depressive cycle, for example.

Who would you recommend swimming in the ponds to?

Everyone! And if you live outside London, there are loads of outdoor swimming groups right around the UK and Ireland. Head to the Outdoor Swimming Society website to find like-minded people.

What's an easy way for people to start a cold-water swimming habit?

It's probably easiest to start swimming in the summer and swim at least twice a week as the temperature drops. But I don't think there's any right or wrong time to start outdoor swimming. I know people who've started in the depths of January. Just be sure to follow the expert advice on the Outdoor Swimming Society website.

The Ponds is screening at the Art House Crouch End in late December (check cinema listings for details) and is available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray via The Ponds website.

Nightcleaners at Bertha DocHouse

Benjamin Hollis — 2019-11-02T10:01:07Z

Nightcleaners – An oddity of its time that captures the British working class struggle of the early 1970s

« Nightcleaners » is an early 70s observational account of London's female office cleaners embroiled in an arduous struggle for fair pay and fair treatment by their male and middle-class bosses. The film has an admirable grip on the public conscience, garnering sustained attention from activists and doc-lovers alike over the years and prompting a well-received screening at Bertha Dochouse on Thursday. Sally Alexander, a leading figure in the Cleaners Action Group during the campaign, was alongside Humphry Trevelyan, a member of the film's production team, to introduce it.

Starting life as a leafleting campaign to unionise the cleaners, the film snowballed into a four-year project, resulting in a 90 minute piece that in 1975 at its time of release, baffled its subjects.

As she described on Wednesday, this was not the punchy campaign film Sally had hoped to unveil to her fellow activists as a recruitment tool. What Humphrey and the rest of the Berwick Street Collective had produced was an experimental, patient and deeply artistic piece. Although that seemed to stymie its purpose at the time, its qualities have granted it the longevity and admiration that it enjoys to this day.

What the film does particularly well is demonstrate the tedium, monotony and physicality of the women's work. With painstaking precision and repetition, the women are shown scouring the offices of London's high-rises, floor by floor, desk by desk, toilet by toilet. In the early stages of the film, the audience is only spared from the experience to be given excerpts of infuriating conversations with the bosses, who show a bewildering lack of understanding for their employees. It's revealed that one boss has never been seen by any of his cleaners in over five years of work.

With despair, the women describe the helplessness of their situations. Too poor to clothe their children and too busy with childcare to take regular work, they are forced to work unthinkable hours on little pay, most of them surviving on just two hours of sleep a day. Worst of all, they don't have the time, energy or courage to stand up to their employers. Frequent close-ups of the women's faces show a fatigue that is etched deep into their features.

We then discover former cleaner May Hobbs who, assisted by members of the Women's Liberation Movement, gradually persuades the women to consider mounting a resistance against their bosses and increasingly against the patriarchal system in which they find themselves.

As the women continue to encounter obstacles, chairing desperate meeting after desperate meeting, the picture widens to capture a snapshot of working class British society at a fascinating time. Hope of a better future is spreading amongst workers who, like the nightcleaners, had once abandoned themselves to their fate. The words « socialism », « equality » and even « communism » are cautiously being spread amongst co-workers as protests increase out on the streets and trade unions grow in power and influence.

« Nightcleaners » is a beautiful and artistic interpretation of class struggle in its clearest form. It shows an admirable sensitivity for its subjects and successfully translates the acute pain they and other working people's situation brings them.

The sequel, « '36 to '77 », will be showing at Bertha Dochouse on Wednesday the 6th of November, followed by a Q&A with the audience.