The Falling

Intense and clever Lydia and rebellious Abbie, are both 16 years old and studying at the same, overly strict, school. They carve their initials into an oak tree by a pond and vow never to lose touch. But Lydia already feels that Abbie is drifting away from her and soon her fears are confirmed. Struggling to find comfort and individuality within the strange atmosphere of the school and her troubled home-life, Lydia feels driven to discover what is really behind everything that seems wrong. As the fainting escalates Lydia confronts the authority figures around her! And in doing so, it forces old secrets to rise to the surface and she finds herself faced with a truth that she never expected...... If you've seen Morley's Dreams Of A Life, you will know just how dream like and oceanic her vision can be. Here, it's at its most intense, with some of the the most visceral subliminal imagery I've seen since Friedkin's Captain Howdy made an appearance to Father Merrin. My interpretation of the film, however wrong I may be, is that it's about sexual awakening, repression and oppression, after all, Abbie's explanation of an * is pretty much the same as the symptoms the girls are having when they 'fall'. The intense look of ecstasy they have on their faces as they fall, is somewhat disturbing, and as the 'fallings' become a more regular occurrence at the school, Morley injects some quite surprising humour into the proceedings. What is wonderful though about the film is that the reasoning is never clearly explained in the narrative. Are the girls folding under peer-group pressure? Is the spirit of Abbie possessing each sufferer? Or is it just a coping mechanism to deal with loss? Williams is wonderful as the tormented Lydia, and to imagining to live her dysfunctional, incestuous life, could be the horror element to the film. Revelations and actions in the final fifteen minutes of the film are truly heartbreaking, and this is also thanks to a wonderful turn from Maxine Peake as Lydia's agoraphobic, mentally unstable mother, nearly stealing the film from Williams. With elements and references from several movies, most noticeably Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Innocents, and The Wicker Man, The Falling is a wonderful gem that needs to be seemed out as soon as you can. It's a sublime psychedelic experience about coming to terms with major changes in life, with a devilishly black streak running through it. One of the years best movies.

Whilst taking a look on Youtube at trailers for upcoming movies I stumbled on a review by British critic Mark "big hands" Kermode on a stylish-looking Supernatural Drama.Walking home a few weeks later,I decided to take a look in a local second hand DVD store,and I was delighted to spot the official DVD being sold for only £2! Which led to me getting ready to fall into the falling. The plot- England 1969: Desperate to get away from her single, agoraphobic mum, Lydia starts to develop a close friendship with Abbie,who gets up to mischievous activities at the all-girls school with Lydia.Whilst Lydia is nervous around boys,Abbie dives right in,and ends up getting pregnant. As Abbie and Lydia try to keep the pregnancy hidden at the school,they both start to suffer from a fainting spell.Hit by a strong case of the fainting spell,the still-pregnant Abbie dies on the school floor in a coma-like state. Grieving over Abbie's death,Lydia starts to explore the power from her mysterious fainting,as the fainting spell spreads across the entire school. View on the film: Backed by a shimmering acoustic indie score from Tracey Thorn,writer/director Carol Morley & cinematographer Agnès Godard give the film (produced by Luc "son of Nic" Roeg) a lush supernatural green which is rubbed up against the rising damp of the late '60s.Splicing subliminal images into the title, Morley touches on the supernatural with a real delicacy,as light greens and deep river blues surrounding the girls gives the fainting spell a magical, rustic quality,which also subtly connects to the loss of childhood for Lydia.As a fainting epidemic covers the school,Morley keeps Lydia's home life firmly grounded,with each room being covered in dour wallpaper and thick clouds of cigarette smoke,which Lydia tries to escape from by curling up in claustrophobic corners of the rooms. Staying away from overtly stepping into Horror territory,Morley brilliantly uses the supernatural element in the screenplay to give the movie a deeply unsettling atmosphere,thanks to the mass fainting heightening the grief that Lydia is gripped by,which slowly covers the school in a psychologically horrific mass hysteria.For the central relationship between Lydia & Abbie,Morley entwines the girls in a fragile,obsessive bond,as Abbie's exploration of her sexuality presses down on Lydia's fear of loneliness.Cast adrift by the loss of Abbie, (played by a superb Florence Pugh) Morley makes the tough rules of Lydia's (played by a powerfully raw Maisie Williams) school open up the raw nerves of Lydia's grief,thanks to the closed emotions sending Lydia's fear and terror across the school like a magik myth,whose spell is cast in a hauntingly ambiguous final note by Morley,as the school falls into the falling.

source: The Falling

source: The Falling