|
AWAYDAYS at The Bradford Film Festival
By Margaret J Shillingford
|
|
When Carty meets Elvis at a Bunnymen gig, they fall headlong into a volatile friendship that each of them aches for but neither can control. Violent, sexy and funny, Awaydays is a blade-sharp rites-of-passage that buzzes with the post-punk energy of its late-70s Liverpool setting.
|
Based on the classic novel by Kevin Sampson, and pulsating to a soundtrack of
Joy Division, The Cure, Magazine, Echo & The Bunnymen and Ultravox,
Awaydays examines identity, fate, the nature of male longings and
their need to belong.
It is the first major feature film to be set during, and evocatively portray,
the first dawning of the football casual fashion cult.
|
|
|
Quadrophenia meets Control? Trainspotting meets Stand By Me? AWAYDAYS is all of these - A Catcher in the Rye with switchblades.
|
|
On Saturday 28th March I was lucky enough to see Awaydays at the Bradford Film Festival,
where it had been chosen as the closing film at the last night Gala attended by many
of the cast and crew including Stephen Graham , Liam Boyle, Nicky Bell and Sean Ward,
along with the author Kevin Sampson , producer David Hughes and director
Pat Holden, a born and bred Yorkshireman .
|
|
It was my second time seeing the film at Bradford , I'd originally gone along to the
London Film Festival to support the film's director out of familial duty as he
happens to be my brother, although the subject matter of the film was something
I didn't think would appeal to me in a million years !
|
I'd already had to suffer watching Green Street when my son brought it home one day, and I didn't really want to repeat the experience , but family is family so I turned up.
I didn't expect to be so absorbed by the film that I didn't at all miss having popcorn and sweeties on hand to take my mind off it , and neither did I nod off half way through as is my wont nowadays!
|
|
|
This isn't just another football hooligan film, although there's a fair amount of violence involved, it's so much more than that.
|
|
It's about growing up on the Wirral during the early Thatcher years of job losses, dole queues and the disenchantment of the working classes at having no future jobs to go to with the closing of the shipyards and privatisation of so many industries.
Its also a look into the music and fashion in the post punk late 70's where the brand of trainer you wore was all ,and Northern based bands were proliferating in the underground club scene.
|
|
Liam Boyle as Elvis and Nicky Bell as Carty both give outstanding performances for actors
new to film, and Stephen Graham (This Is England and soon to be seen as Al Capone in
Martin Scorsese's upcoming film on the gangsters life) turns in yet another terrific
performance as Godden , the leader of The Pack .
|
|
Also worth mentioning for a particularly believable and chilling performance is Oliver Lee as Baby , the challenger to Godden's leadership of a group of fey looking lads who rival gangs think will be a pushover when they see them striding up sporting wedge haircuts, Lois jeans, Fred Perry shirts and Adidas Forest Hills trainers as their uniform of choice.
|
|
|
Ian Puleston-Davies, lately seen as Mr D' Urbeville in the BBC's production of Tess also gets a thumbs up for his playing of Carty's funny Uncle Bob, who joined the office where they both work 'as a stop gap'and is still there 28 years later, whilst urging Carty to go back to his Art Foundation course before its too late.
|
|
|
Awaydays is the kind of film that stays with you , you'll be thinking about it long after
you leave the theatre , and you may also be surprised to hear a much earlier incarnation of
Ultravox rocking out the fantastic track, Young Savage and sounding like a
young band that wouldn't be out of place in the charts today.
The film is released on 22/5/09 and Universal Music is aiming to bring out the fantastic soundtrack at or around the same time.
|
|
| What's Happening? |
|
|
|
| Chill Out |
|
|
|
|
|
