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Day #21/365: In The Dark Half

File under:
Trails and influences; Touchstones. Case #8/52.

The visuals of this film are sumptuous, it has supreme lenswork by Spanish cinematographer Neus Ollé. Director Alistair Siddons said that he thought the viewpoint of somebody from outside of England would bring something unusual to how the film was visually… and it does that indeed.


There is a subtle sense that you are looking in on a magical otherly world. There are folkloric elements to the film but it’s not so much those which give the sense of a world with it’s own rules and even magic. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is but there’s a certain lush, soft beauty to the rundown estate and it’s nearby countryside in the film (which is good to say as a contrast to the often standard British realist cinema take on such things)…


…but in that lush beauty there is a sense of something else, something unsettling.

Anyway, I shan’t talk too much about this film as I think it’s one to go away and appreciate in itself.

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