What to Watch Thursday: Shell and For Those in Peril

Jan 16, 2014 | by Cathy Leung | Art

About the author

A sucker for a good story, Cathy is a writer, originally from London. As part of broadcastamsterdam.nl she reviews films and makes video reports on Amsterdam in English. She picks out the best of the lot especially for Overdose. Tweets @cathycentral

What To Watch Thursday is Overdose’s weekly film injection: every Thursday we will tell you which cinematographic pearls can’t be missed! Hitting Amsterdam this week in combination with the dark days of January; two bleak films set in Scotland. Wallow in the misery …

Shell

Anticipation: I’ve been waiting ages for this film to come to the Netherlands after spotting it on the programme at The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in early 2013. The film poster showed a girl running with a desolate stretch of the Scottish Highlands in the background. Running after what? Or running away from what? Here, the local release date was put back at least once. On 8 January 2014 came news of director Scott Graham’s BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. Oh the suspense.

Appreciation: Pete (Joseph Mawie) and his teenage daughter, Shell (Chloe Pirrie), live on a remote petrol station and are coming to terms with their claustrophobic existence and their dependence on each other for love, for survival. Of course there’s a play on her name. When one of the few other characters asks her name and remarks ‘Like the oil company’, the teenager is defiant; no, like a ‘beautiful’ seashell. More than anything else Shell examines the effect of this lonely place on a girl with a sensitive soul. There really isn’t very much else in the way of a story, instead Shell is more of a character study, both of the girl and the place.

Shell

Length: 91 min.
Verdict: ★★★ – Captures both the loneliness and intimacy that comes from isolation.
Where to see: Rialto

For Those in Peril

Anticipation: Competing with Shell for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer BAFTA, the film also boasts rising star, George MacKay (Sunshine on Leith), in the lead role. But I didn’t know all that before I saw the film. I just got reeled in by the eerie foreboding of the trailer.

Appreciation: Quite a tale this: a fishing village loses five of its own in a boat accident. One young man survives but is haunted by the thought of the ‘devil’ under the sea and believes his brother, one of those lost, may still be alive. The story unwinds gently but as the film progresses there’s a definite build up to a brilliantly baffling end sequence that could be interpreted in several different ways. Although there’s good back up from the rest of the cast, MacKay’s performance as troubled survivor, Aaron, carries the film for me; his mythical ramblings, his mental deterioration. I didn’t immediately love For Those in Peril, but it’s one of those films that stays with you. Not for very long, I hope, as it’s pretty dark. But hey, it’s January after all.