REVIEWS
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Sandman
| BBC
SANDMAN
MAGAZINE REVIEW - JANUARY 2004 ISSUE
Nathan Ditum checks
out Sheffield's
burgeoning home-grown film scene.
JELLY DOLLY Sheffield's
Cargo Film presents this dark,
imaginative feature debut from Susannah Gent.
Ostensibly a film about the difficulties of ending a
failing relationship, Gent injects Jelly Dolly with a
surprise element of slow burning body horror which
provides a framework for the film's incisive examination
of female sexuality and independence.
In present-day Sheffield,
Audrey (Rachael Walton) is restless
in her relationship with Henry (Ashley Barnes), her solid but
stale live-in boyfriend. They bicker by day and by night
Audrey dreams of escape - running lost through woodlands,
engaging in daring sexual adventures in barns.
In contrast, next-door
neighbour Alice (Litza Bixler) has a
new boyfriend, James (Stuart Laing), whose energy and
confidence draw Audrey in. While Alice and Henry are at
work, Audrey and James get to know each other better,
and Audrey is gradually forced to confront her simmering
discontent.
Although well acted
and presented, this is a tired and over-
familiar arrangement. However, all concerns about lack of
originality disappear when Audrey discovers what seems to
be a ring-pull emerging from the flesh around her navel.
This sudden mutation is appalling but magnetic - an itch
to be scratched, a scab to pick - and Audrey's tentative
refusal to confront what is growing within her chimes
with her failure to terminate her doomed relationship
with Henry.
Furthermore, the alien,
unnatural quality of her discovery
makes us - and her - feel increasingly uneasy about her body.
The visceral horror
of the ring-pull comes to reflect Audrey's
growing physical disgust with Henry, whose pathetic
attempts to initiate sex are brilliantly played by Barnes with
all the charmless desperation of a dog humping legs.
Adding enormously
to the film's tension is the impressive
sound design. Constant, near subliminal whirring and
rumbling accompany the claustrophobic domestic scenes,
punctuated by cracks of thunder and anonymous thuds.
This oppressive, heavy soundtrack is the perfect compliment
to the rut in which Audrey finds herself, and communicates
her agitated, on-edge unhappiness most effectively.
Jelly Dolly's combination
of surreal horror and intense sound
is at times Lynchian - its use here to examine seemingly
idyllic urban life follows Lynch's similar exploits in Blue
Velvet. But as Audrey is slowly stirred into forging a new life
for herself Jelly Dolly becomes very much its own film.
The focus on well-worn
issues of women and relationships
avoids an over-simplistic diagnosis of trading old for new
and instead presents us with an engaging glimpse of a
complex search for happiness.
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