This short film came online recently, although it is a proper 'festival' film in the same way as in cinemas you can tell when awards season is coming up and plenty of more worthy pieces start getting released. This is not a criticism of either kind of film, but Saturday very much feels like a film to be appreciated at a festival rather than something that has a natural home on your phone as you wait for a bus.
And 'appreciate' is the word here, because the film has a really strong sense of quality in the production, and a very worthy feel to the content and approach. The connection to Hillsborough is a remote one, as our focus family are more hearing about it than experiencing it. However, the film sets up the characters and then has small moments where the experience of the disaster is played out on them. It sounds simple just to say it, but we see a young boy crushed in a 'pile- on', supporters behind a fence in a bar while we look over the shoulder of a distant policeman. Things like this are both smarter and more emotionally impacting than I just made them sound – when they came I was surprised by how effective and well delivered they were.
Problem is that the rest of the film is not as effective. The hook into the family is not as good as the way the film hooks you into the experience of the disaster – but the latter is only a few moments whereas the former is the majority of the running time. This is not helped by the feeling of worthy quality, which means the film does come over like it is whispering in a church, again limiting its engagement even if it is worthy for it. The end result is a film of class that is worth seeing for its best moments, but not one that is good enough as a whole to really stand out, which is a shame. In the end I respected and appreciated the film more than I thought it was a good film.
And 'appreciate' is the word here, because the film has a really strong sense of quality in the production, and a very worthy feel to the content and approach. The connection to Hillsborough is a remote one, as our focus family are more hearing about it than experiencing it. However, the film sets up the characters and then has small moments where the experience of the disaster is played out on them. It sounds simple just to say it, but we see a young boy crushed in a 'pile- on', supporters behind a fence in a bar while we look over the shoulder of a distant policeman. Things like this are both smarter and more emotionally impacting than I just made them sound – when they came I was surprised by how effective and well delivered they were.
Problem is that the rest of the film is not as effective. The hook into the family is not as good as the way the film hooks you into the experience of the disaster – but the latter is only a few moments whereas the former is the majority of the running time. This is not helped by the feeling of worthy quality, which means the film does come over like it is whispering in a church, again limiting its engagement even if it is worthy for it. The end result is a film of class that is worth seeing for its best moments, but not one that is good enough as a whole to really stand out, which is a shame. In the end I respected and appreciated the film more than I thought it was a good film.
