NEDS
Directed by Peter Mullan
UK, France & Italy, 2010
Cornerhouse, 23 January 2011
A letter sent from the almost forgotten past, a postcard written in blood.
At its centre: an immensely charismatic performance by Conor McCarron, who plays John McGill, an academically talented lad surrounded by threats, intimidation, violence and aggro.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules…
Lennon’s great song pretty much sets out the circumstances and course of John’s life, its tensions and fault-lines.
There is a kinship to This is England and to Awaydays also, this latter film set in Liverpool and concerning itself with football violence, but Mullan is ultimately his own man with his own distinctive vision. There is a strong Christian vibe here, albeit an idiosyncratic one, not least in the ending, a riff on that ‘the lion shall lie down with the lamb’ line.
For some reason, I thought also of Hammett’s Flitcraft parable: John responds to the threat of violence with violence of his own, but when it’s absent he gets on with his school work. Being bright as a button, he adapts to circumstances and goes where he’s wanted, joining a gang of mates. His undoing is the contiguity of violence and a concomitant awareness of death.
Mind, doesn’t this, though, plague us all?
Jildy Sauce 