I used to blog about films a lot but I don't much anymore, but this one has to be talked about.
Cinema Club with Stuart Reekie is the one night a month where Stuart and I go out, one of us picks the film and the other one doesn't know what he's watching. It was my turn to choose.
Mainstream cinema films this month were pretty hopeless to pick from so I went slightly off the wall to The Broadway Cinema in Nottingham to see Captain Fantastic. It scored very high at the Sundance Film Festival and the trailer looked amazing, you can see it here.
It started off at the Boilermaker with beer and whisky (an excellent start to any Monday night) and then on to the film which was two hours of sheer genius, sheer poetry and sheer philosophy.
In essence it's the story of couple who raise their six kids in the wilderness and very early on it becomes clear that she has died and he's trying to get the kids to the funeral. He is re-introducing six children who have been raised outside of the rat race into the rat race. But there are three extraordinary points in the film (in my view) which means it's a must see for everybody as an education for your children.
1. A dinner conversation with a "normal" family (his sisters children) where the "normal" mother and father refuse to let him tell the children how his wife actually died (suicide by cutting her wrists) because they want to protect their children from the horror of reality, only to enter into an argument and for the children to be sent away.
The next shot flashes to their children playing on the X-Box in a shooting game and killing people for fun - huge irony and a huge insight into what we actually say and what we actually do.
2. The funeral - I have been to too many funerals now which were not funerals that the person who died would actually like in any way. This is done brilliantly in the film where the minister presiding over things has never met the person who has died. I think it's probably time for me to write down what I would actually like if that were to happen me, especially after my experiences this summer with Tim.
3. Finally the cover version at the end of the film. No spoilers here, just suffice to say that you have to watch this film for that alone.
An amazing happiness booster on a Monday night. I was gratified with my choice when we left the cinema and Stuart said "I think that was even better than Dallas Buyers Club"
That film had become our benchmark for cinema club and I think this, although maybe not better, scores as high.
Blog Post Number: 1080
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