The Falling (2015)

This film would have benn good if it had kept one focus - but it keeps opening new side-story lines that are never really unraveled, it touches so many subjects that it doesnt really get to go deep in any of them. The music in scenes that should seem eerie makes it all seem like a romcom, the genre essentials are too blurry.

The plot of this film revolves incidents of pupils fainting at an all girls school in the 1960s. Sounds interesting but this film is executed poorly.The most obvious error in the film is the cinematography. The images look good but I imagine this is due to the resolution the film was shot in and colour grading. If I were watching a YouTube video I would be very impressed. The reason I am not is because the lighting is poor (at least for cinema). While everything is crystal clear, there is no depth to the lighting, the light looks the same throughout the shot. A good cinematographer would create dark and light areas within the same frame. After seeing this film I watched the director's short film The Madness of the Dance which is much more visually interesting so I looked up the cinematographer and discovered it was Christopher Doyle (that explains why it looked good). That film used different colours of light (red and blue) within the same frame and had areas of shadow which gave the shots depth.The film is also boring. Some may say this is because I am male and didn't go to a boys/girls only school but I feel that is a cheap excuse, I have enjoyed many films where I have never had the same experiences as the main character. Very little of anything of interest happens throughout the movie. It is later revealed the cause of the faintings is mass hysteria. I would have preferred a more supernatural explanation, still would have been ridiculous but at least it would be more interesting.Sorry Game of Thrones fans but Maisie Williams is bad at acting. Let's be honest she was only cast because of the marketing appeal being in GoT brought.A thing in the movie that was annoying was that the main character had sexual feeling for her own brother and the brother did not object. Seriously he does nothing to stop her advance, he even goes along with it. They even have sex only to be stopped by their mother. The relationship between the main character and the mother was meh. The revelation that the main character was conceived through rape which is why the mother is too scared to leave the house and is dismissive of the main character was alright but it is done so poorly. It made sense but the scene had no punch. Had it shown both the characters having mixed feelings about each other throughout the film, it would be more impactful. All the daughter does is whine and the mother and insult her and the mother, like I said, mainly dismisses her. There is no real development between the two.Speaking of lack of character development a male teacher kisses a female teacher in the movie, she rejects him. But their relationship is not shown before or after this scene. It doesn't even have any effect on the narrative or main character so there was no point in the scene even being in the movie. I gave this film a 3/10 overall because it's still a competent movie (for the most part), editing is fine, costume is fine and music choice is fine.

I thought it was very good - it's a slow atmospheric movie in the British movie tradition of Nic Roeg. Reviews here complain of unanswered questions but that's only if you don't pay attention. I did think it was a private school, but seems not - a private school of the 1960s would be more the environment where repression and hysteria are confined, only to spiral out of control. It did lose pace in the last quarter, though concluded with a strong scene. Acting was excellent from all the main parties. I'll certainly look out for her next film. Ludicrously I'm now required to add more lines to make my review more interesting - a pithy review of the salient points is far better than a lengthy ramble. As other's have said above the mother figure was the least satisfactory - being a class conscious Brit there was a clear disconnect between the mother's Southern England rural accent and the daughter's well spoken accent - was it meant to be a grammar school? I don't know.. otherwise the late 60's was very well drawn.

Whilst taking a look on Youtube at trailers for upcoming movies I stumbled on a review by British critic Mark "big hands" Kermode on a stylish-looking Supernatural Drama.Walking home a few weeks later,I decided to take a look in a local second hand DVD store,and I was delighted to spot the official DVD being sold for only £2! Which led to me getting ready to fall into the falling.The plot-England 1969:Desperate to get away from her single, agoraphobic mum, Lydia starts to develop a close friendship with Abbie,who gets up to mischievous activities at the all-girls school with Lydia.Whilst Lydia is nervous around boys,Abbie dives right in,and ends up getting pregnant. As Abbie and Lydia try to keep the pregnancy hidden at the school,they both start to suffer from a fainting spell.Hit by a strong case of the fainting spell,the still-pregnant Abbie dies on the school floor in a coma-like state. Grieving over Abbie's death,Lydia starts to explore the power from her mysterious fainting,as the fainting spell spreads across the entire school.View on the film:Backed by a shimmering acoustic indie score from Tracey Thorn,writer/director Carol Morley & cinematographer Agnès Godard give the film (produced by Luc "son of Nic" Roeg) a lush supernatural green which is rubbed up against the rising damp of the late '60s.Splicing subliminal images into the title, Morley touches on the supernatural with a real delicacy,as light greens and deep river blues surrounding the girls gives the fainting spell a magical, rustic quality,which also subtly connects to the loss of childhood for Lydia.As a fainting epidemic covers the school,Morley keeps Lydia's home life firmly grounded,with each room being covered in dour wallpaper and thick clouds of cigarette smoke,which Lydia tries to escape from by curling up in claustrophobic corners of the rooms.Staying away from overtly stepping into Horror territory,Morley brilliantly uses the supernatural element in the screenplay to give the movie a deeply unsettling atmosphere,thanks to the mass fainting heightening the grief that Lydia is gripped by,which slowly covers the school in a psychologically horrific mass hysteria.For the central relationship between Lydia & Abbie,Morley entwines the girls in a fragile,obsessive bond,as Abbie's exploration of her sexuality presses down on Lydia's fear of loneliness.Cast adrift by the loss of Abbie, (played by a superb Florence Pugh) Morley makes the tough rules of Lydia's (played by a powerfully raw Maisie Williams) school open up the raw nerves of Lydia's grief,thanks to the closed emotions sending Lydia's fear and terror across the school like a magik myth,whose spell is cast in a hauntingly ambiguous final note by Morley,as the school falls into the falling.