A Film Review Nil By Mouth

Nil by Mouth (1997)

Nil By Mouth A Film Review

Gary Oldman has made a harsh and brutal film that is very disturbing and utterly compelling, about a working class family living on a council estate in east London.

From the opening credits the focus of the film is Ray a very violent and disturbed man, married to Val who is pregnant with their second child. Around this couple are Val’s brother Billy, a heroin addict, Janet, Val’s mother and Kath, Val’s grandmother.

What we are confronted with throughout the film is the suffering and poverty of these people’s lives. Janet watches helplessly as her son Billy slides further and further into heroin addiction and her daughter Val is beaten up by Ray in a obsessive and jealous rage killing his unborn child.

Ray is a man tortured by his own upbringing particularly his relationship with his father. In the most powerful scene in the film Ray, drunk and full of rage and despair Ray tries to grapple and overcome his pain and anger of the past; to take control of his emotions instead of allowing them to control him.

The acting is outstanding. Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke are totally convincing.

By the end of the film there is a sense of reconciliation the family gathered around a kitchen table. Ray has redecorated and fixed the flat he had earlier demolished and quietly accepts the compliment from his mother in law.

The hope for Val and Ray lies in that one expression of Ray’s quiet humility.

It is so different from the blind and uncontrolled monster that dominates the film that casts a sinister and dangerous shadow, a Kurtz figure presiding over a modern day wasteland.

The setting is November around these South London concrete and graffiti estates. it is always dark, claustrophobic, a yellow anaemic florescent light illuminates abandoned walkways and faces filled with fear and pain.

The film is a harrowing and breath taking achievement from beginning to end, difficult to watch but harder to turn away from.

One Hundred Words About A Job

I glanced at the job specifications a month ago and decided the post was not for me.

Then on the day after the deadline passed my head of faculty asked why my letter of application was not on her desk. I told her she would have it that afternoon.

Since then I have barely thought of anything else. I’ve been in turmoil about it. The post includes supporting staff, raising student achievement, moderating coursework, and running meetings.

The interview was Tuesday. I have the job of course coordinator for the second year of the English Language and Literature A Level.

One Hundred Words About Hammocks

  

I'm sitting in a hammock swinging gently under the shade of Ash trees. Hard bright sunlight filters through leaves. Over there I can hear the laughter of children and before me the wood in radiant July stretches out with birch and hornbeam.

The children cannot see me and I drift unnoticed for a few minutes before lunch.

If I look back towards the camp I can see a new hammock with someone else lying in it. And in my dreamlike state I imagine hammocks surrounding the whole camp where each one of us can slip away unnoticed for a while.

Our Sun In Ultra Violet

  

I thought you might like this amazing photograph of our sun using ultra violet light.

One Hundred Words About An Ending

It has been a busy few weeks since my last one hundred words. Most of my free time has been spent thinking about the poetry challenge which has left little time or energy for this blog.

So I announce that from the 29 July the one hundred word project will end.

In its place I will post my contribution to the poetry challenge each week. The occasional one hundred words may slip in from time to time and there may be a week or so when my poem is so poor I cannot bare to post it to this blog.