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‘WE WEREN’T MAKING AN EXPLOITATIVE FILM ABOUT HILLBILLIES’ Hitlist THE BEST FILM RELEASES *
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Redneck noir Drugs and debt in the wilderness, Debra Granik’s new film is the very essence of modern America. Tom Dawson meets her.
T he American film writer-director Debra Granik has just returned from visiting this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival and she’s recalling the films she managed to cram in between her promotional duties. ‘I loved Thundersoul, a documentary about an African-American high-school funk band in Houston, and also the Scottish shorts collection,’ she enthuses. ‘And I saw both the Soulboy films as well, the one in Africa and the one in Wigan. I was getting to see about three films a day, which was great.’
It was Granik’s digitally shot Winter’s Bone however, which turned out to be one of the standout films of the Festival. Set in the poverty-stricken Ozarks region of southern Missouri, it focuses on a 17-year-old girl, Ree (Jennifer Lawrence, pictured), who has to look after her mentally ill mother and her two younger siblings. The teenager has been given just a week to track down her father, who has skipped bail on charges of dealing crystal meth: if she fails to find him, then the family home will be repossessed. Winter’s Bone is adapted from a novel by Missouri writer Daniel Woodrell (whose previous novel Woe to Live On was adapted by Ang Lee into Ride with the Devil), and the 47-year-old Granik reveals that as soon as she began reading the book, ‘I knew it would make a good movie. Daniel writes in a very cinematic way and I found the character of Ree very compelling. I wanted to know how she dealt with each situation, and I kept asking myself, “Would I be able to do that?” and “What does it take to be that kind of person?”’
In the two years prior to shooting Winter’s Bone.
Granik made frequent trips from her New York home to Missouri, in order to familiarise herself with potential locations and to gain the trust of local residents, several of whom she ended up casting in supporting roles. ‘It was crucial,’ she explains, ‘that the locals knew what the content of the story was, and understood that we weren’t city slickers doing an exploitative film about hillbillies.’
One of the most noticeable aspects about Granik’s film is that it resists simplistic categorisations: it’s simultaneously a coming-of-age thriller, a naturalistic character study, and a neo-realist portrait of a marginalised community. And it has the feel of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, in which its young blonde heroine Ree has to venture deep into the woods to complete her quest, encountering all sorts of dangers along the way. Ree is repeatedly warned, acknowledges the filmmaker, ‘to turn back, and the warnings get more hostile, to the point where violence is committed against her. And like in a fairy tale she has to bring back an emblem, an actual sign to show she has completed her task.’ Whilst Granik’s debut feature Down to the Bone also revolved around a beleaguered female character, she expects her next film, Rolling all the Time, to be more of an ensemble work. ‘It deals with the everyday lives of contemporary travelling musicians, who don’t aspire to being famous. Like Winter’s Bone it’s beautifully written, it’s just a question of whether it can come alive on the screen.’
Winter’s Bone, selected release Fri 17 Sep. See review, page 55.
✽✽ Alamar Slow but sweet Mexican drama set in a marine paradise. See review, page 54. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 17–Thu 23 Sep. ✽✽ Cyrus Mumblecore goes mainstream in this honest and fresh comedy. See review, page 55. General release, Fri 10 Sep. ✽✽ Winter’s Bone Modern noir set in the backwoods trailer parks of Missouri’s Ozark Mountains. See feature, left and review, page 55. Selected release, Fri 17 Sep. ✽✽ Ivul A boy who lives in the trees, a family in regression – what can experimental filmmaker Andrew Kötting be getting at in the second part of his Earth trilogy? See review, page 55. GFT, Glasgow, Mon 20 & Tue 21 Sep. ✽✽ Metropolis Fritz Lang’s 1927 vision of the future restored. See Also Released, page 56. GFT, Glasgow, Fri 10–Thu 16 Sep; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 10–Sun 19 Sep; Cameo, Edinburgh, Sat 18 & Thu 23 Sep. ✽✽ Certified Copy Abbas Kiarostami’s beguiling romantic drama starring Juliette Binoche. GFT, Glasgow, until Thu 16 Sep. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 17–Thu 23 Sep. ✽✽ Mother Mental South Korean thriller. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 10-Thu 16 Sep; GFT, Glasgow, Fri 17-Sun 19 Sep. ✽✽ The Illusionist Animated fable set in Edinburgh. Selected release, until Thu 16 Sep. ✽✽ Scott Pilgrim vs The World Better than average cult comic and videogame adaptation. General release, out now. ✽✽ Piranha 3D Big B movie bite. General release, out now. 9–23 Sep 2010 THE LIST 53