A stunning opening leads to a moving film full of suspense, surprises and shocking truths which touch to the core. Immediately engaged, we are introduced to the reality of the setting, immaculately rendered in a choreography of pans and cuts.
Each choice they make alters their fate, each experience changes them for the worse or for the better…
The camerawork remains intriguing as we follow each character on their individual and collective journeys to the heart of who they are and what they know about themselves, and we are forced to question our own nature too as we become implicated in theirs. What would we have done? How would we have behaved? Would we feel as we do now watching them, if it were we who were in their place? Each choice they make alters their fate, each experience changes them for the worse or for the better, and each step leads them further into a chain of events which is unstoppable, unbreakable, yet unsure. There is no turning back, except to reminisce about a past which is not as clearly written as one person’s memories may attest.
The stunning cast of honest, deeply human portrayals possesses a remarkable chemistry…
The climax breaks, fearsome, and we are left stunned. But a climax is by no means the end, and they must continue on. Relationships are not released, unentangled, by a single event. The stunning cast of honest, deeply human portrayals possesses a remarkable chemistry, and each character is utterly believable as an entity and in his or her relationships with others, as well as with us, drawn like tightly held lines into their stories.
This is a film about love, and hatred, and trust and lies. It is about human nature, the true self that lies deep within us yet can be altered so swiftly, can be sculpted then returned to the dust from which it came. It is about time, and its steadily fickle passage, the tightly knitted threads of past, present and future. It is about tiny joys, and overwhelming sadness, about life and death. About hope. This is a film about everything, and a film about nothing.
SURPRISE FILM screens at 17:30 on Sunday 23rd September at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse.