|
Like Father is Amber's most accomplished
narrative film to date, blending themes and styles with a confidence gained from
earlier, more faltering attempts such as In Fading Light (1989) and
The Scar (1997), and with a series of outstanding performances, not only
from Ned Kelly (Arthur), Joe Armstrong (Joe), Jonathon Dent (Michael) and Anna
Gascoigne (Carol) in the central roles, but also from those in the supporting
roles, such as Amber regulars Brian Hogg and Amber Styles. Joe Armstrong also
deserves great credit for a marvellous brass band score.
As with many of its predecessors, Like
Father was two years in the making as cast and crew immersed themselves in
the local community, and a number of the sequences, such as Joe's music lesson
at the community centre, were shot before the script was written, incorporating
this and other sequences, as well as the result of interviews and conversations
with local people.
The film draws upon many of the themes of
Amber's previous work dealing with communities, industries, and ways of life
under threat, interweaving the personal and the political with genuine social
authenticity and considerable emotional force. As with earlier films, Like
Father avoids heavy-handed sloganising and presents no pat and patronising
solutions to the personal and social dilemmas raised. It makes its points
quietly, and is all the more effective for that, and challenges its audience to
think as well as feel.
In one remarkable, supremely cinematic
sequence, Joe parks his car outside a local newsagent. From a shot inside the
shop looking out at a forlorn Joe, we see a birthday card 'To a Special Husband
- Happy Birthday'. It is, we know, Joe's 40th birthday, and he is estranged from
his family. Cutting to an exterior shot, as he looks in the shop window, we see
a poster for 'Mining and Music - a display of mining memorabilia with music and
song'. As Joe leaves, the camera pans to children playing on an old pit-head
wheel, no longer symbolic of a thriving industry, but rather a piece of urban
art. Wordlessly, the personal and the political, the private and the social, are
synthesised and thrown into stark relief in a moment of pure cinema. Thus far,
in thirty years, have Amber come. Martin Hunt
|
1. Opening scenes (4:15)
