Choice Brits - Script Factory

Pure Joy

On a cold winter's evening, Mariella Frostrup made her way to The Other Cinema to wax lyrical about one of British Cinema's best kept secrets of 2003, Gillies Mackinnon’s Pure, starring Molly Parker and Keira Knightly and set in the shadow of the West Ham football grounds.

Mariella Frostrup
Tues 9 December at The Other Cinema
 
It’s great that so many of you have managed to brave the Christmas shopping crowds and the freezing weather to be here, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I myself am delighted to be here tonight as part of The Script Factory’s Choice Brits initiative and to be introducing a fine example of British filmmaking. I’m always a little nervous of that broad umbrella term that we use to describe films from every part of the UK and indeed much to my chagrin, sometimes the Republic of Ireland.
What, after all, does ‘British’ mean these days? Am I ‘British’? My father was Norwegian, my mother was Scottish, I was brought up in Ireland and I live in London. My passport says I’m British and that’s the only thing, so I guess I’m a bit of a mongrel, and indeed so is the British film industry. If you look at East is East and Love Actually they don’t really look like they’ve got much in common but they apparently do because they are both arguably British films. Financing knows no borders; it comes from wherever anyone can get it; talent comes from a global pool and stories themselves are thankfully no longer anymore a celebration of Anglo-Saxon values, but reflective of the vibrant multi-cultural world that we’ve created.
So when I describe a film as ‘British’ I always feel just a little bit hypocritical, but then again when I describe a film as ‘British’ I’m also paying it the highest compliment I possibly can. When I say it’s a British film I’m expecting a movie that follows in a certain tradition that lives up to our reputation for making challenging, honest, important films that continue to prove that cinema is not just another form of mass entertainment but an indispensable art form in it’s own right. Often these films are made against the odds in financially challenged circumstances, not that that makes any of us more forgiving; like the expectations we have of loved ones, we probably expect just that little bit more from a British film. We’re much more liable to find fault in it, or ignore it altogether and we certainly don’t make allowances for bad behaviour. The film you’re about to see lives up to all those criteria. It’s a small movie with a huge forgiving heart. It appears to tell one story, but the discerning among you will be rewarded by the countless others bubbling away under the surface. It’s brave, unflinching and tackles its heartbreaking story of a young boy forced to be a man in the face of his mother’s seemingly hopeless heroin addiction with sympathy while making a genuine attempt to broaden our understanding of these fragmented lives.
The performances, are just breathtaking, in particular the film’s young star, Harry Eden, who I wanted to kidnap – which would make a really sad ending – and the exceptional (I’m sure you’ll all agree when you’ve seen it) Molly Parker who plays his addicted mother.
Technically its fast on-foot camera work compliments the mean streets of West Ham in which the action takes place and there’s not an emotional false note in the entire 93 minutes.
I approached watching the film the second time with serious trepidation – I wasn’t sure if I was up to the emotional wear and tear a second time around – and I was right to be nervous as I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach again. Nothing was dulled by my familiarity. I hope you too will experience the universal truths and undeniable affirmation of the power of love that are on display tonight in Gillies Mackinnon’s Pure.