Dreams of a Life (2011)- Movie Review in Prose: Who were the presents for?

Directed by: Carol Morley
Written by: Carol Morley
Starring:         Zawe Ashton
Distributor:     Dogwoof Pictures
Released:       16th December 2011 (UK)
Length:           95 minutes
Language: English
Box office: £187,513


'Dreams of a Life is a 2011 drama-documentary film, released by Dogwoof Pictures, directed by Carol Morley and starring Zawe Ashton.'

'It tells the story of Joyce Carol Vincent, whose body was found in January 2006 decomposing in her bedsit in Wood Green, North London, after she apparently died unnoticed in December 2003, surrounded by unopened Christmas presents with her TV still switched on.'

'The film interviews various friends, acquaintances and former partners to try to tell the story of Joyce, who is played in reconstructions by Ashton.' (Info from Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_of_a_Life


REVIEW:

A sad tale, looking for reasons behind the lonely death of a pretty girl, it was three years before anybody noticed, and I watch, judging everybody, forgetting about the editing decisions, the manipulation that is documentary, the lady never attached, the jobs, relationships, began, but never progressing.

I can relate.

She died alone, surrounded by Christmas presents: Who were the presents for? Her family, perhaps? Four sisters, and her father, do not appear in the documentary. Just work-friends that laugh at her being a cleaning lady before she died, poverty stripping her dignity, they are middle-class, and laugh at the image of her scrubbing floors, ha ha, work ‘mates’ do not care, a truth, it disturbs.

Two boyfriends interviewed. One with career/status rejected her. Other boyfriend is the ordinary man, not exciting, she rejected him, he still cries, the first boyfriend doesn't particular care, he's moved on and his life is fine.

Her isolation part choice, part failure.

Documentary pushes the idea of bad boyfriend abuse, it doesn’t stick, fails to convince. This is about personal choices, and a failure to connect, to plan for the future.

I do not see a victim here, just great sadness, a sadness at the heart of the towns, cities, routines and business that makes up our lives. Nothing extraordinary, it's the mundanity of life where real horror exists. A wave, a smile, fading into head down, scurry, a life off the rails, falling apart, sitting on a park bench, a face so pretty, now forgotten.

Documentary ends with a sad zoom of her face in the crowd, at a Nelson Mandella speech, it works well as an explosive documentary technique, she appears disinterested, apathetic, unmoved. An interesting lady, not into race politics or hero-worship. I probably would have liked her, but the lingering memory of the piece, a question remains: Who were the presents for?


Rating: 7/10 (The lack of input from surviving family members makes it all a bit speculative and contrived, but 'Dreams of a Life' is emotionally engaging, and worth watching as a social commentary piece about urban isolation and a failure to connect)

Walk Away: To reclaim ownership of yourself

By: Mark.A Pritchard (aka SwindonPoet/Rorshach1004)
Date: 15th September 2015



I understand the feeling, the need intensifying, to leave it all alone.

To smile, though nobody looks, cares.

To turn from the noise, from the jump on sentences, repeating themselves for infinitely.

Recycled ideologies, personality types, life stories, falling for the same old tricks, again and again.

Our age, our time, our ruination, humans devolving, and now, it’s time to walk away from the crowd.

Degenerated mass, circus animals, performing tricks, to amuse each other, not caring about their own enslavement.

They love it.

They really do.

Exchange whip, fight for ownership of coercion.

Sales talk, just talk, they love a good con man, woman now.

The only option for the awake is to walk, away from their cage love, circus love, love of the lie.

To leave the car in rush-hour traffic, throw the iphone away, embrace the quiet solitary life, away from the dull noise collective.

Broken routine, reclamation, noise fading, mind silence, quietude expansion, a chosen walk, away.

Swindon Town- The iGeneration- Passing me by

I live in a nice little English town.

Swindon town.

There’s a football team here.

And a magic roundabout.

The former consists of those that want to be somewhere else.

Swindon shops, always busy.

The later is a traffic jam in the middle of the town centre.

The people here, in Swindon town, live in little houses, and in their cars, and at work, or school.

Occasionally they walk, or cycle.

Plugged in to ithings.

Listening to something else.

Going somewhere else.

I watch as they pass me by.

They’re so busy.

On their way to work.

Or school.

Or shopping.

Or whatever it is that they do.

Because I don’t really know what they do.

I can guess.

But they don’t talk to me.

They just pass me by.

Off they go.

The magic roundabout, always busy.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

Zoom.

Zoom.

They're so busy.

With so little time.

I live in a nice little English town.

Swindon town.

I’ve lived here for over thirty years now.

There are people here.

Nice people.

I think.

I don’t really know them.

And they don’t really know me.

Are we happy?

I don’t know.

We don’t speak.

Of triumphant isolation- A short story

Original story by: Mark .A. Pritchard
Composed and published: 26th February 2015


He sits upon the floor, a cushion, a blanket, fidgets around trying to make himself comfortable whilst the candle flickers, casting a shadow of interest upon his dull, now magical bedroom wall.

There is no plan, there never is a plan, for plans go wrong, and what’s the point in planning something that will only go wrong?

A book, a pad, writing down the important sentences that he quotes over and over again in his head.

‘You don’t like me, but I don’t like you either.’ 

Yes, that was a good one. She really managed to say something there.

Caught the essence, like a wasp in a jam jar.

Library just a hop, scrape and crawl down the road, past the shop, past the pub, past the old theatre.

Row after row of Heaven in dust.

It could be Hell.

Though the taste is of purgatory’s never ending circle.

Feminism, Marxism, Post-modernism.

Read, repeat, pass.

Read, repeat, pass.

Pat on the head for jumping through hoops.

The lonely, creaky old books hover over regimented lanes of blank faced students, headphones on, ignoring those around them, talking to a bucktoothed girl in Luxembourg, or however that old Smith’s song lyric went.

Typing, how do you do that frowny face again?

Back to the shadows that flicker.

Now that quiet, incessant rumble of traffic, crack, a snowball through the window, plops softly on the bed, rock laden, heavy to break, to cause damage as they run away laughing into the night.

Colder now, traffic louder, candle almost out, dawn breaking, business outside, sleep overcoming.

He waits for office hours, calls for repair, hangs up, settles down, book read, candle out, don’t forget a library visit at teatime, a book, a book, a book.



The snowy library picture used at the head of this poem/story/thing can be found here: http://moonlightrose44.deviantart.com/art/Winter-Library-193895942


*Quote is from a Jean Rhys book. Which one? I forget.