This one's a beautiful, tender, quiet romantic drama with a moody atmosphere, set in a tight knit Welsh fishing community. It's a touching story about a man waking up sexually in the middle of his life, and how he, his family, and everyone around him deal with it, which makes it emotional and sentimental without ever getting over the top. The slow burn plays out against a landscape that's as bleak as it is gorgeous, where quiet, closed off men are stuck inside rigid ideas of what masculinity should be. Some people might be reminded of "God's Own Country," but I think both films are lovely in their own way. Jack is a middle aged guy who co-owns a mussel farm with his rough around the edges brother Dyfan, and the tension between the two of them is simmering under the surface right from the start. Dyfan's three sons all help out with the work, while Jack's sulky teenage son Tom keeps skipping out. Jack's been with his wife since they were both 16, and...
February, 1983. Detectives are called to a residential address in the London suburbs following reports that the drains have been clogged by human remains. One of the property’s residents, Jordan March is called in for questioning. Slowly he accounts for how he lured young gay man, mostly homeless and jobless, got them into his apartment and eventually kill them. He would bury them under his floorboards and take them out and sometimes sleep with them or just sit with them till the bodies get too smelly.
The film is shot in a very documentary like style without any high production thrills. In fact the photography is often grainy and dim, but it does capture the sleazier late eighties London night life with a raw beauty. The film looks much older than it really is and I am told that this was done on purpose (I wonder why since personally for me , that doesn't work). One thing that's missing here is any overt reflection on the homophobia prevalent at the time. We encounter it only through its secondary effects: the number of young queer men drifting through life with no-one to look out for them. The interrogating officer goes from plain mad to somber to arrogant, which I presume was the situation of the detectives those days in dealing with a criminal like this man. Also we do see trippy flashbacks to Jordan’s childhood where he witnessed the death of his grandfather, presumably triggering his various morbid fascinations that we never really get any background on. Something seemed to be missing in the film, since it never really went deep into the why's and psyche of the characters. Interestingly, even the victims were not shown as likable characters for some off reason.
I would recommend to give this one a miss and watch Des instead. Brilliant acting with a detailed account of exactly what happened, this experimental film instead leaves a lot to be desired. (3/10)
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