If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1.50 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed
Released with much acclaim in 2010, the work of writer and director Philip Ridley, has become available through the esteem and prestigious halls of Ventnor Library in the form of ‘Heartless’ on DVD.
With a script and setting of East End London, this truly stunning darkened drama uses fleeting blasts of horror in a manner that nearly over-rides any previous efforts at the genre.
Quiet and foreboding, but not for long
‘Heartless’ does develop quietly and forebodingly at first, but the style almost perfectly used throughout the story’s 109 minutes, achieves not only a beautifully and worryingly dark cinematographic but also a nearly unexpected narrative, which becomes a cause for higher understanding.
As far as British cinema can become almost entirely predictable, the work of ‘Heartless’ is quite incomparable to any other films with the possible exception of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. Its impact and power is startlingly bleak and follows Jamie – a photographer hindered by a birthmark that has caused him to be a reclusive character.
Mysteriously surprising?
The perspective and unfolding of ‘Heartless’ is mainly from Jamie’s point of view, but gradually allows the limited number of characters to come forward and interact in a foreboding and descending story that is not only imaginative, but mysteriously surprising.
Directed with complete simplicity the cinematic world of ‘Heartless’ is well filmed, brilliantly acted and undoubtedly horrific, but directed with the careful skill and humour of a Roman Polanski film.
With much consideration, ‘Heartless’ does at first seem to be a low-budget film with some interesting effects, but as it unfolds, the film eventually fathoms across to any audience that area of naïve tension through impressive acting and a rather unusual level of a script that reveals massive talent waiting in the shadows.
