(2006) What has been lost through violence cannot be retrieved through vengeance. In Glasgow, Scotland, with its bitter weather and unsightly appearance of trash and graffiti, Jackie Morrison (Kate Dickie), single and living alone, works for a security firm, monitoring the public from a bank of 15 screens in a closed-circuit tv system.

Occasionally without expressing any pleasure she has sex in a van with Avery, another employee of the company; she listlessly attends her sister Jo's wedding ("Daydream Believer" sung by the Monkees during the reception). She wears a gold wedding band on her finger. She cares about the people she watches over: a familiar image on the monitor of a man with his dog makes her smile.

On another screen a man, chasing after a girl into an alley, initially raises alarm, but then Jackie cancels her call for police when the girl appears to consent to copulation. While zooming in for a closer look at the man, Jackie reacts with recognition. In director/writer Andrea Arnold's mysterious thriller (partly the result of sparse dialogue, which is occasionally difficult to follow because of the thick Scottish brogue), based on characters developed by Danish screenwriter and film director Anders Thomas Jensen with Lone Scherfig, the unforgettable past comes hurtling at woman who has lost her husband and child.

Becoming obsessed with observing Clyde Henderson (Tony Curran) on her cameras - watching him park his blue van across from a high school and wait for a girl to whom he hands something - and then trailing him on foot to his flat high up on Red Road in Barmulloch, Jackie sneaks into the building to make his acquaintance, along with Stevie (Martin Compston) and April (Natalie Pressman), during a party.

Later she goes to a pub (picking up a rock and putting it into her pocket) after seeing him on the CCTV go inside with Stevie and April; attracted to Jackie, Clyde grabs her and hauls her back to his rooms over his shoulder. In Clyde's bedroom, with a lava lamp, Jackie notices a photo of a young girl; his daughter, he says, whose mother has told her he's dead: "It's hard going straight." The cunnilingus and coitus are explicit.

When Jackie abruptly decides to depart, Clyde calls after her: "Is it just a shag you wanted then?" After striking herself in the face with the rock and smearing his semen from the condom she'd taken from him on herself, she contacts the police.

From Wikipedia: "Red Road is the first film in Advance Party, a projected trilogy following a set of rules dictating how the films will be written and directed. They will all be filmed and set in Scotland, using the same characters and cast. Each film will be made by a different first-time director."

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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