Presentation on The Falling

Well, I let myself be persuaded into seeing The Falling with Film Nite, so I figured I might as well let myself be persuaded into seeing the talk about it tonight. Meetup wasn't throwing up anything that particularly grabbed me, anyway, and the company is good with Film Nite. Naturally, the organiser of Film Nite was as disorganised as ever - actually, slightly more so - and didn't put up a PayPal link at all this time. But I know him, I know the venue, and I figured I could just pay in cash anyway.

Unsurprisingly, I was the only Meetup member to sign up for this; well, hardly anyone came to the film, and I doubt many liked it - if anyone. Fair enough - Film Nite has a life outside of Meetup, so there were likely to be others there. I stayed late at the office to finish something, so ended up heading straight into town - I got cash on the way.

The Piccadilly Line was reasonably crammed and I didn't get a seat.. then, arriving at Leicester Square, I had a slightly hurried dash to get to Soho House in time, pushing through the crowds of Chinatown. And then there are all those stairs.. I was quite winded by the time I entered the cinema. I took a seat, and it was lovely to see people I knew, greet them and be greeted by them. That's what Meetup should be like. Of course, I needn't have rushed - it was ages before they started.

What followed was an interesting talk, starting off by focussing on The Falling, of course. Sadly, the presenter was much more enthusiastic about it than were any of us, and found it hard to engage us much. She had all kinds of theories about the themes demonstrated in the film. She emphasised, for instance, the symbolism of the moon.. gosh, I hadn't noticed it that much but I guess she was right, it was there. She highlighted the emphasis on hairstyles in the film - which was interesting, I hadn't picked up on that. And she related it to older films - quite effectively, I thought. Picnic at Hanging Rock is the obvious one, with strange things happening to pupils at a girls' school, en masse - but mass hysteria does crop up elsewhere, as in The Devils. We got clips of those, and others.

Also interesting was the information about the writer/director herself, Carol Morley, whose troubled background may have provided the basis for the film. She also wrote and directed Dreams of a Life, for which she is most famous, and which we saw the trailer for; it's a documentary about a young woman that died in her flat and whose remains weren't discovered for three years. I gathered the impression that Ms. Morley is perhaps better at making documentaries than fiction.

Afterwards, some of us headed back to The Spice of Life again - we didn't stay till closing this time, though! They're good company, and I look forward to meeting them again. Sadly, they're disbanding for the summer, but a couple of meetings are planned before then.

There's a lot on with Meetup tomorrow, but I think I'll head to a film - on my own. We Are Many has been sitting at the top of my film list for a while, and it's time to get it off of there. Closest cinema showing it is the Odeon Panton Street.