I can't really make my mind up about this one, simply because it hides its real meaning behind a complex combination of ideas and references about life, beauty and religion without ever really arriving at a tangible conclusion. For this reason it remains a little too unconvincing to count as anything meaningful, and cheapens anything it might have had to say by falling back on what is becoming a hoary old cliché at its conclusion.
Jim Sturgess gives an entirely believable performance as Jamie, a withdrawn young man cursed with a heart-shaped birth mark on his face who embarks on a descent into insanity provoked by the run-down urban environment in which he lives. He believes the young hoodies who haunt the streets of London's East End really are demons – even though they're only kids wearing demon masks in truth – and his tortured mind conjures up a twisted fantasy that ends in murder and his own death. It's a death which brings relief and takes him to a place where he was only ever really happy.
The story is impenetrable at times – not because you can't understand what's going on but because you are fed so little information that it's difficult to understand *why* the things we see have happened. Films like this usually become clearer following some reflection after the credits have rolled, but this one resolutely refuses to make firm sense. The meaning (or reality) of too many characters is left so open to personal interpretation that any analysis becomes futile. Philip Ridley is clearly a highly talented individual, but it seems that the abundance of ideas has overwhelmed him.
On the positive side, the film develops a strong atmosphere of foreboding. It manages to deliver some unexpected twists and jolts and is always intriguing. It reminded me a lot of the kind of thing Clive Barker would write, anchoring its story in a dreary but recognisable physical and mental landscape while forsaking any commercial ambitions in the pursuit of a unique – if apparently confused – personal vision.
Jim Sturgess gives an entirely believable performance as Jamie, a withdrawn young man cursed with a heart-shaped birth mark on his face who embarks on a descent into insanity provoked by the run-down urban environment in which he lives. He believes the young hoodies who haunt the streets of London's East End really are demons – even though they're only kids wearing demon masks in truth – and his tortured mind conjures up a twisted fantasy that ends in murder and his own death. It's a death which brings relief and takes him to a place where he was only ever really happy.
The story is impenetrable at times – not because you can't understand what's going on but because you are fed so little information that it's difficult to understand *why* the things we see have happened. Films like this usually become clearer following some reflection after the credits have rolled, but this one resolutely refuses to make firm sense. The meaning (or reality) of too many characters is left so open to personal interpretation that any analysis becomes futile. Philip Ridley is clearly a highly talented individual, but it seems that the abundance of ideas has overwhelmed him.
On the positive side, the film develops a strong atmosphere of foreboding. It manages to deliver some unexpected twists and jolts and is always intriguing. It reminded me a lot of the kind of thing Clive Barker would write, anchoring its story in a dreary but recognisable physical and mental landscape while forsaking any commercial ambitions in the pursuit of a unique – if apparently confused – personal vision.