Hidden Kingdoms

I caught the end of the new BBC documentary ‘Hidden Kingdoms’ the other day, and immediately went and watched the rest of it on iPlayer. The aim of the programme is to get amazing unique footage of animals, and to film from their perspective…

The bit I saw was the camera crew setting up a track in the hope they’d gain the trust of a sengi (or rufous elephant shrew), and be able to film it. A sengi is actually related to an elephant, despite being tiny, furry, and incredibly fast; seemingly the complete opposite to an elephant. The camera was set at the same level as the sengi, and was mounted on tracks. However, a sengi is so fast that the camera crew could barely keep up; the first sengi ran across the path quicker than the cameraman’s reactions could kick in. Even moving the camera as quickly as possible was too slow to capture the incredible creature. Eventually they got some footage purely by chance, and watching a sengi running in slow motion, in such detail, is actually quite stunning.

Hidden Kingdoms takes footage of amazing animals, including a sengi, a dung beetle, a chipmunk and a treeshrew, and combines it with other footage of animals generally regarded as predators, such as hawks, rattlesnakes, owls and lions.

One scene, which shows a mouse leaping to escape a rattlesnake, was created by filming rattlesnakes making strikes at a hot towel above a camera, which was later merged with footage of a mouse.

The programme amazed me because of the stunning camera quality, the determination and perseverance of the camera crew, and because of how naturally amazing nature is. They got some amazing close up shots, and I can’t help but think what a brilliant job it must be to work on a programme like that!

The Magdalene Sisters (Peter Mullan, 2002)

I found The Magdalene Sisters on iPlayer when I was looking for a festive film on Christmas day… It certainly wasn’t festive, so I left it until today.

BBC iPlayer described it as a ‘hard-hitting, controversial convent drama in which three young women battle to maintain their spirits in a Catholic asylum run by sadistic nuns’. I’m not sure what it was about this description that made me want to watch it, but now that I’ve seen it, the description doesn’t really do credit to the film…

It was certainly tough to watch, particularly because it’s all based on real life situations. The epilogue reveals that 30,000 women were held in Magdalene asylums, and that these three stories are of ‘the lucky ones’, if they can be called lucky… they escaped, but have to live with the memories forever.

This harrowing film tells the true stories of four girls who are admitted to a Magdalene asylum in incredibly Catholic Ireland. To begin with, the mission of these asylums was to help the ‘fallen’ women back into society, but the Magdalene laundries soon became quite prison-like and awful. The women were usually required to undertake hard physical labour, including long hours doing laundry and needle work. Their daily routine included long periods of prayer and enforced silence, with minimal food and recreation time.

Despite being difficult to watch at times, the plot was captivating and compelling, and the acting was brilliant. Within fifteen minutes, all three of the girls have been introduced and have just entered the asylum. This would have been the ideal time to turn it off and think ‘nope, this is too powerful for me’, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. The filming and the acting combined had brought me too far into the story, and I found that I cared too much about the girls to just turn it off.

The first fifteen minutes introduces the girls, Margaret, Bernadette and Rose (who is referred to by the nuns as Patricia, which is her confirmation name, after they tell her they ‘already have a Rose’). Margaret is put into the asylum after she is raped by her cousin; this alone made me feel sick, as the unfairness was overwhelming. Bernadette is admitted purely just for being pretty and flirtatious. Rose is first shown in the hospital, having just given birth to a baby boy. Her father immediately calls her outside and demands that she signs her baby over to the Church orphanage, while she is taken away to the Magdalene asylum for having a child out of wedlock.

Happily, the three women shown in the film manage to get out of the asylum, although this is after about four years of constant work and ridicule at the hands of the nuns. Margaret is eventually released by her younger brother (who claims he had spent the last four years ‘growing up’), while Bernadette and Rose escape together, using teamwork to overpower the mother superior and get the keys to the front door. They then run away to Dublin to visit Bernadette’s cousin, who provides them with clothes, money and a job for Bernadette. Rose is shown getting on a bus to Liverpool. Crispina (who the girls become friends with in the asylum) has a sadder fate, however, and is taken away to a mental institution to stop her from being able to tell everyone about the priest’s sexual abuse towards her. Her mental state deteriorates while in the institution, and she dies of anorexia aged just 24. The film is based on a documentary, ‘Sex in a Cold Climate’, which is a real life documentary about the four women the film features. Although the names are changed, the stories are all similar and scarily true.

As well as it being a fascinating, eye-opening film, it’s also incredibly well filmed. There are several brilliant shots, such as a close up of Bernadette’s eye as the nuns forcibly cut all her hair off. It’s not only a shocking shot, but gives a lot of detail in just one picture. The nun can also be seen reflected in her eye.

Another brilliant shot, in my opinion, was when a piece of bloody tissue was placed into water and it slowly expanded and the blood ran… The focus on such a small thing made me concentrate much more, to find out why the tissue was covered in blood. I thought this was a very impressive, thought-provoking shot.

In my opinion, the only bad thing about this film is the incredibly negative view it could give of Catholics and nuns. This is always the problem with films highlighting the extremes in the world; it can often lead to gross sweeping generalisations and stigma against particular races or religions. However, I feel that things like this shouldn’t be hidden away, and that this film is a very important one. Peter Mullan has said in interviews that he made the film because victims of the Magdalene asylums had “no closure”, as they had not received any recognition, compensation, or apology.

Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)

I first saw Children of Men a couple of years ago in English, and it stuck with me for a long time. It came into my head randomly a few days back, so I decided to rewatch it, and it’s still just as good as I remember it being.

Based in 2027, in a world of infertility and chaos, Theo Faron meets a pregnant young West African refugee named Kee. He promises to accompany her to ‘the Human Project’, a scientific group who are dedicated to curing infertility. However, a group named ‘the Fishes’ discover Kee’s secret and attempt to use the baby as a political tool in the upcoming revolution. Theo, realising the danger, tries even harder to get Kee to safety. Eventually, after a long struggle, Theo gets Kee to the harbour where the boat, the Tomorrow, approaches them. However, Theo announces that he was shot in the fighting, and slumps forward. Kee tells him she will name her baby Dylan, after Theo’s son who died of pandemic flu, making for a very emotional ending. It is uncertain though, whether or not she gets on the boat, and whether or not ‘the Human Project’ even exists.

I actually loved this film, it’s hard to get across how much I love the plot and the whole idea of it… The film is based on a book by P. D. James, who should clearly get the credit for the idea. However, Alfonso Cuarón, one of my favourite directors, takes the book and puts it on the screen perfectly. Cuarón has recently directed a new film called Gravity, which I can’t wait to see!

The cinematography in this is brilliant; at one point, some ‘blood’ lands on the camera.
It makes you feel so much more involved, and almost scared, as suddenly the action is so much more ‘real’. This was the first time I’d come across this technique and I thought it was great – since then I’ve seen it a couple of times, but I always think of Children of Men when I see it.

The attention to detail was probably my favourite thing about it though. Since I originally watched it as part of an English lesson, I had to watch a clip several times, and every single time I watched it, I noticed something new.