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Reviews
The Navigators (2001)
Issues - Ken Loach is back
If first time script writer Rob Dawber hadn't torn a tendon falling off a sand dune on holiday in 1996, The Navigators may never have materialised. It prompted him to write to director Ken Loach about his experiences working on the railways for eighteen years in Sheffield. As a union rep he worked through privatisation until 1997. While the changes were being made, concerns of safety and working conditions were being ignored, and so the idea of dramatising the issues was born largely out of frustration. This is the story of a group of railtrack workers who are faced with voluntary redundancy' and all it's contradictions. The conditions they have to work within, forces out an incongruous humour that naturally comes from oppressive and terrible situations, but their situation also leads inevitably to disaster. Loach is not particularly renowned for his aesthetically pleasing images in some circles, and the humour often comes with a callous edge. His films are just too near the knuckle for some people to be entertained by them. Those who do not want to be made aware of issues' are the most disdainful, but they miss out, if they are interested in film at all, in terms of Loach's fantastic ability to inspire the most naturalistic performances, by actors, and non actors especially. Again, some of these faces are entirely unknown, other than the Full Monty's Steve Huison, but because of this, the characters are thoroughly believable. The interaction between them is awkward sometimes, disjointed, the dialogue does not run smoothly, and you get an impression of real life friction as a result. As producer Rebecca O'Brien says, It gives a real veracity to the story being told.' Similarly, designer Martin Johnson says that the ultimate aim is to make it look so real that no one can see there has been any design'. In this sense Loach just becomes stronger the more he does.
Blow Dry (2001)
A poor relation to The Full Monty
Blow Dry. `Ladies and gentlemen, start your blow dryers!' Not the classiest line in the film, but it gives you the gist of a story about competitive hairdressing that is not totally unprecedented. Kevin Allen's The Big Tease of two years ago had Scottish hair 'artiste' Crawford battling against his barber nemesis to win the Platinum Scissors competition. Here, the plot is an elaborate framework for the kind of hearty, slice of life humour that made The Full Monty a smash hit. Championing the underdogs seems to be the only driving factor that makes up a large portion of British films. Our poor, downtrodden working classes are the subject again, and while there is plenty of meat left on that kind of idea, if it is done properly, writer Simon Beaufoy seems to be left only with the bones of The Full Monty to work with, despite an acclaimed cast including Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson, Rachel Griffiths and Warren Clarke. Translated to screen this time by director Paddy Breathnach, Blow Dry admittedly has enough guts about it to feature terminal illness, and alternative lifestyles within the characters of Sandra (Griffiths), who ran off with her hairstylist's wife Shelley (Richardson), who has cancer, but they seem like contrived details to wrench some emotion out of the story, and are never fully tackled. There also seems to be an unfair ratio of American to British actors happening in British films lately. We get the token Brit in American films from time to time, but these days our films are being infiltrated by bad accents and over-rated actors. Rising American star Josh Hartnett plays Brian, Phil's (Rickman) trainee barber son, who is the link to tie up animosity between his parents and coax them into entering the National British Hairdressing Championships which has come to Keighley for some reason. Hartnett's accent has been stitched together from every over-heard vernacular from the whole of the UK, which does nothing for the film's sincerity. Along with far too many sub-plots, and wince-worthy clichés, Blow Dry undermines the abilities of its cast, and the people it represents, which makes for a weak film from a strong writer. The only good thing about this, is the realistic portrayal of stylists own atrocious hair-do's.