Sep 21 2012
Something about young British women
Sound familiar?
I wondered why this theme came up so much in Arnold’s work, so I googled her. Here she is:
This is a direct quote from Arnold herself: ” When people use that word, or ‘grim’ or ‘gritty’, I just think, ‘Oh, come on, look a bit deeper.’ My films don’t give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they’ve really been through something.”
Arnold is able to see past the surface, deep down into the gray where others tend to see black and white. She understands that a mother can have enough of her kids and just need a “f***ing night out,” without being a bad mother. She sees that a 23 year old girl with 4 kids and more than 4 potential fathers for those kids might just be a little misguided and lonely. And she has a passion for making her audiences get that too.
Nice article! I totally agree that Arnold accomplishes her goal with this film. Do you agree that there is a gray area for Zoe’s situation? Isn’t she responsible for bringing those children into this world?
Of course Zoe is responsible for her children, as every mother is. But i think the point of this film is to show how hard it can be for some mothers who really didnt know what they were getting themselves into.
I think the director stands out in inviting the audience to her world and making them think again whether that’d be the morals, or just the fact itself. The whole story and background was very new and shocking for me and if it wasn’t for Arnold’s careful setting and filming technique, I guess I might have fallen for the clichéd prejudice of black and white.