Kiss of Life (2003)

Director:

Emily Young

Writer:

Emily Young (writer)

Release Date:

2 January 2004 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Helen lives in London with her father and her kids. John, her husband, is an aid-worker in Eastern Europe...

Awards:

3 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Ingeborga Dapkunaite	...	Helen
Peter Mullan	...	John
David Warner	...	Pap
Millie Findlay	...	Kate
James E. Martin	...	Telly
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ivan Bijuk	...	Old Man
Sonnell Dadral	...	Rajiv
Natalie Dew	...	Nicky
Gemma Jones	...	Sonia
Elizabeth Powell	...	Little Kate
Marinko Prga	...	Mercedes Driver
Barbara Rocco	...	Woman In Bar
Dragica Sreckovic	...	Old Woman
Davor Svedruzic	...	Angry Soldier
Heather Tobias	...	Teacher
Rosie Wiggins	...	Nadine
Ivan Zadro	...	Depot Worker (as Ivica Zadro)
Ranko Zidaric	...	Depot Boss

Also Known As:

Helen of Peckham (UK) (working title)

Runtime:

France:86 min (Cannes Film Festival) | UK:100 min

Country:

UK | France

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:12A | Netherlands:12

Company:

Autonomous

Soundtrack:

Just Wanna Be

Very rewarding emotional film

With this film Emily Young uses a simple plot to explore the deeper emotions of the human condition, including desolation, yearning, loss, love and grief. Ultimately the film questions the viewers' beliefs and philosophies of life, death and the afterlife. A mother of two is killed in a hit and run accident while her husband, unaware of the accident, but in the process of realizing his deep love for his wife and family, desperately tries to return from his aid mission in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the dead mother's father, himself still in grieving for his dead wife is poor comfort for the disorientated children. To explore the mother's feelings she appears, following her death, as a spirit/ghost and interacts with the living. Some viewers may be confused by this and get bogged down trying to understand the order of events but really the death of the mother is serving to prime the viewer to empathize fully with the family characters in the scenes to follow. The order of events and indeed whether the events have actually occurred or not are largely irrelevant but the feelings evoked by the scenes are crucial. Some of the scenes and events/images are allegories for other events, states of mind, general emotions etc. Also the events have different meaning for each of the characters in the film. For example, the photo, shown regularly in the film has a very important meaning to the mother but a different but just as important meaning to the young son. The script is left quite bare and the director relies heavily on the skills of all the actors' expressions and abilities to convey the meanings of each scene. There are a number of tremendously emotional scenes in this film but the imagery in the wood and the final scenes with the mother in the rain are particularly important. I personally think this is an excellent film because it does demand full involvement and empathy from the viewer.