Red Road
This is the first must-see in quite awhile. It’s been too long since I really got sucked in to a film… Finally!!!!  Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes last year.  This is part of Zentropa’s new experiment “The Advance Party.”  Almost like Dogma 2.0.  Read..no spoilers.
From the film notes: RED ROAD is part of a unique, three-film concept called Advance Party produced by Sigma Films in Glasgow and Zentropa in Denmark. The idea behind Advance Party is that the same group of characters would be given to three different directors who would each have to develop a film around those characters. All the films would shoot for the same length of time in the same city, Glasgow. Â
Quick synopsis: Jackie (Kate Dickie) works as a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze. One day a man appears on her monitor, a man she thought she would never see again, a man she never wanted to see again.
Does this guy look like Jay Thames or what?
Okay, first off…I know I’ve said this a few times now..but damn!!  That HDCam looks amazing.  After an hour, I noticed some strange about the hot spots..I could tell that they treated a section of the frame… it was only then that I realized that “Red Road” was shot on video.  Amazing.
Second, this is such an intriguing script.  Jackie is a CCTV operator so at first we are watching her as she watches others.  Nice.  So as an audience member, I felt like the overseer of the overseer and knew more than Big Brother.  However, when the mystery kicks in, the audience is actually more in the dark than Jackie.  We are trying to figure out who this mystery man is and why she wants to get close to this seemingly dangerous man. So she still has the upper hand…great concept.
The film truly kicks in when she crashes a party in this guy’s flat ..in a nasty ghetto project in Glasgow.  I felt the danger that the character was placing herself in.  WOW.  And then the film keeps getting better..with amazing performances, really nice twists, and beautiful character arcs.  SEE THIS MOVIE!!!
NATALIE PRESS (My Summer of Love, Bleak House)
Very interesting stuff here:Â Â RULES of the “The Advance Party”
The Rules
“The scripts can take their starting point in one or more characters or they may be subjected to an external drama. The characters can also participate in a form that is governed primarily by neither characters nor plot.
The films take place in Scotland but apart from that the writers are free to place them anywhere according to geography, social setting or ethnic background. Their back-stories can be expanded, family relations can be created between them, they can be given habits good or bad, and secondary characters can be added if it is proper for the individual film.
The interpersonal relationships of the characters differ from film to film and they may be weighted differently as major or minor characters. The development of the characters in each story or genre does not affect the other scripts.
All of the characters must appear in all of the films.
The various parts will be cast with the same actors in the same parts in all of the films.â€Â
Lone Scherfig & Anders Thomas Jensen
Author
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OpenCritic
I saw Jay Thames in a quit smoking commercial.