Light House Film Club

Director: Courtney Hunt

Cert: 15

Time: 1hr 37mins

The tone of this gritty drama is set from the outset as we are shown, in close up, the battle hardened features of a woman clearly in distress.  They belong to Ray Eddy, an upstate New York trailer mom, who is on her uppers after her gambler husband has taken off with the down payment for their new mobile home. 

Whilst attempting to track down said husband, Ray meets Lila, a Native American girl, who lives on a reservation that straddles the US-Canadian border.  With Christmas approaching and desperate to get the down payment for the new home she learns that Lila is a smuggler through which lies a route to easy cash. Thus does she reluctantly agree to start trafficking illegal Chinese and Pakistani immigrants in the boot of her car.

The tale has a certain inevitability about it. But at no time does it try to sentimentalise the circumstance of the protagonists, all of whom are trying to eke out an existence on the dark margins of society.  In so doing it covers a lot of issues – the economy, racism, crime and the perils of necessity.  Melissa Leo is also excellent as Ray Eddy, a tough but essentially decent mom, trying to do her best for her two children. And, whilst the end might be construed as somewhat pat it does offer an antidote to the grim realities that have preceded it.

Rating: 4/5

Director: Gideon Koppel

Cert: U

Time: 1hr 34mins

This fly on the wall documentary of a Welsh farming community will not be to everyone’s taste.  It is gentle, slow paced and there is little in the way of a story line. However such is the inventiveness of the photography that one can only marvel at how director Gideon Koppel has created such a thing of beauty from the seemingly mundane. 

His camera takes us into the life of the mobile librarian as he does his weekly round, the local populace as they meet to discuss the impending closure of the village school, the lives of farmers as they tend to their stock and the local choir as they practice for a forthcoming competition. This last cameo, set as it is to the dramatic imagery of shafts of sunlight breaking through a foreboding layer of cloud, is one of the most moving four minutes of cinema I have ever seen.

What music there is, is sparse, yet entirely appropriate and there is no narration. The result is to give the viewer the space to draw their own conclusions.  A complete delight.

Rating: 4/5

Patrons: 10

CA