SYNOPSICS
Dark River (2017) is a English movie. Clio Barnard has directed this movie. Ruth Wilson,Jonah Russell,Paul Robertson,Sean Bean are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2017. Dark River (2017) is considered one of the best Drama,Mystery,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
After receiving news of her father's death, Alice, a young travelling sheep-shearer, tentatively decides to return to the dilapidated family house of her childhood, in muddy North Yorkshire. Surprisingly, it's been already fifteen years since Alice left behind an ailing dad and her older brother, Joe, to wander about from farm to farm; however, this cold and heavy homecoming will be Alice's last chance to reclaim the land she believes was once promised to her. But, now, on one hand, there's Joe's resentment paired with a rancorous rivalry between siblings--while, on the other hand--fleeting mournful shadows of a troubled past permeate the walls of an imperfect prize. What will it take to keep the haunting memories at bay?
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Dark River (2017) Reviews
A bleak story but an excellent film with excellent performances
It's a sad story of family trauma and an attempt to go home many years later. The photography is superb. The acting is powerful. It works very well as a film overall. I don't want to say any more at the risk of spoiling it for you if you haven't yet seen it but it is well worth watching. As for the negative reviews, I suggest you ignore them. This was never intended to be a super-hero action movie. It's a drama and it does what it sets out to do very well.
Yorkshire sheep farmers confront family shame
A Yorkshire farm family lives out a curse as harsh and ineluctable as a Greek tragedy. The life here is elemental. There are threats of fire and purges in rain. The living quarters are primitive, dark, basic. The men are rough-hewn and violent. The sex is brief, impersonal and urgent. The only modern device is the buzzing shearer. When the guard dog breaks its tether it straightaway mauls a sheep, what it was supposed to protect. This is no Wonderland that this Alice ploughs through, stolid and capable. We see her shear and dip sheep efficiently as a man. For dinner she skins and guts a rabbit, but is drawn from its domestic cooking by her brother Joe's drunken aberrancy. She has to fight off his attempt to burn her Range Rover. As Alice, Ruth Wilson is most expressive in her harrowing silences. The primeval sin is the father's habitual violation of the young Alice. He is all the more sinister for his gentle, tender mien. He didn't need Joe's violence. In shame and anger, Alice spent 15 years working sheep farms wherever she could find them, before her father's death enabled her return. As Joe notes, she is still frightened anew every time she enters a room. Her father haunts her still. And yet.... She has to return to the land. She draws on her father's promise to leave it to her, however poisoned it is by her experience. She applies for its tenancy. She fights Joe in an attempt to bring her new savvy to the operation. Ultimately she loses when he wins the tenancy on the promise to sell out to a developer. The Joe we see is a drunken incompetent lout with his father's male authority. He is violent but has no sand. For he is as scarred by his father's sin as Alice is. He doesn't realize that until she spells it out: "Why didn't you stop him?" His rage and self-destruction are based in that guilt. Joe gets his redemption at the end. He assumes the guilt for the murder Alice accidentally committed. Finally he protects her. Both are strengthened by this cleansing, the confrontation of their curse. So the film closes on an idyllic shot of the two siblings, as teenagers, walking out of the shadowed barn down into their realm of shining fields. It's probably not a memory but a metaphor for the relationship they have now snatched away from their father's shadow. The title has no literal representation in the film. It's antithetic to the waterfall in which Alice twice goes to cleanse herself. Another generation of teens repair there too, possibly without her curse to ablute. The dark river is the family's secret guilt that has rushed through their lives ever since.
Powerful drama
SPOILER: A welcome change from the British film industry away from lame comedies and its obsession with the plight of minorities and urban dramas to this excellent but disturbing Northern masterpiece. You certainly won't leave the cinema uplifted but if you're a drama fan you'll be well satisfied. I was more shocked than I thought I would to see the lasting effect of child abuse. This is really the foundation of the film which shows how the effects of a dark family secret can resonate for ever. Some excellent strong performances by the actors. This is a very visual film and the use of audio to enhance the impact of the scenes is well worth a special mention. My rating 8/10 Highly recommended if you like powerful dramas
Bleak tragedy.
Life on the moors is far bleaker than ever Heathcliffe and Cathy's trials and tribulations would have us believe as a doomed romance. It is presented here as a Tragedy wherein everyone is trapped mentally and physically in a hellish life into which they have been born with no escape possible. A thoughtful take on existentialism. And most definitely not for Americans or those that favour Hollywood cartoon acting and violence.
As a northerner I loved it!
This gets right down into the roots of northern farming. A great cast and exceptional performances from Ruth Wilson and Mark Stanley, who play siblings at loggerheads. The film itself is quite dark. Everyday is pretty much grey and dull to fit the mood for the film. It's filmed beautifully, exactly what you would expect in the lovely northern countryside. I really enjoyed the story, I felt it got deep down into a family feud that included abuse and regret. Very well written.