Our Director Writes
Diary of a Mature Student, Easter Break point Two
For a film student, I realised that the last, oh, say, twenty entries or so haven't actually been about film. There's been realisation, and complaining, and at the end we all hug and such, but for a film student not to talk about film is like a goldfish not to talk about water.
I mean that in the most literal sense; studying film means living and breathing it, until you know the complication/resolution structure off by heart and narrative no longer holds any mystery. It's kind of like peeking behind the curtain of the theatre and seeing the actors being made up and the magicians practicing their tricks; there's no suspension of disbelief any more, but how that affects you is up to you.
So let's talk about television. First, go watch the latest episode of Ashes to Ashes on the iPlayer. I'd link you, but for some reason it won't let me.
Ashes to Ashes is fascinating because right now they're actively working on torpedoing what made both Life on Mars and the original series' of Ashes to Ashes great; that mythical beast, Ambiguity.
Ambiguity is actively hunted in modern fiction, because people don't like it; humans like a definite conclusion, closure, an ending, because that's the way we are. Don't knock it; it's not a bad thing. But Ambiguity has it's own place. Consider the ending of The Italian Job - the original, not the remake - and how Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels references it; the protagonists have just about got everything they wanted, but whether they get to keep it or not is an entirely different matter.
Ambiguity can be beautiful. Whether Sam Tyler existed in 2006/7 or 1973/4 was never fully resolved; once Tyler managed to 'return' to the modern day, his existence was demarcated by an absence of feeling, which made him believe 2007 was the hallucination. In order to access 1973, then, he apparently committed suicide, but awoke in the reality he felt happiest within, having made the hardest possible choice.
This was referenced within the first series of Ashes to Ashes, and relatively cleverly; Sam Tyler had apparently died after some years working for Gene Hunt. This established the 1981 reality as concrete and concurrent with the 1974 reality; if it was a hallucination, it was a consensus hallucination with the same characters retaining the same traits. If it was real, Sam Tyler was dead, Alex Drake was alive and hallucinating her memories of 2008/9, and...
... It gets kind of fuzzy from there. But the first series' conclusion was truly interesting; it was about Alex's closure and learning the true identity of her parents' murderer, as hard as that was. Season two closed in a similarly interesting fashion; having been shot, and woken up in 1981, Alex was then shot - accidentally - in 1982 and woke up in 2010.
In series 3, Alex lives some kind of life - with hallucinations of 1983 - in 2010 - until she wakes up, once more, in 1983. There are persistent images of a scarred, young policeman, and suddenly Gene Hunt's plot armour is cast into doubt, because there's someone after him and aiming to take away everything he holds dear for reasons that will remain undisclosed, at least for another six weeks at most.
But suddenly Sam Tyler might have been murdered, or might have disappeared. and it may have been Gene (or, on the outside chance, Ray) that was involved in his death/murder/disappearance/skipped the light fandango.
Ambiguity is being hunted down, and it's only a matter of time before Gene Hunt is exposed as the Devil/an Angel/A force of salvation/a Consensus Hallucination (delete as appropriate), Alex is established as Dead / Alive / In LimboHeavenHell / In a coma / Actually in 1983...
... It goes on. I don't understand why Ambiguity has such a big target painted on it's back, but hey, here we are, on the raggedy edge...
The new series of Doctor Who - even if I keep wanting to call it Dr. Who, though - has proved to be curiously impressive. Curiously, because the Tennant Doctor garnered so much praise (primarily because he inhabited the role with grace and hyperactivity) that following him up must have been a monumental task for Matt Smith.
The first episode, then, was fun, in a kind of earth-will-be-destroyed way. The second episode, however, for all it's Britain IN SPACE trappings, was amazing. I reserve superlative praise for television shows that aren't The Wire, so it's nice to get the opportunity to use it every now and then, but the second episode on iPlayer for another week, fact fans! - contains character, Ambiguity, and, of all things, heart. In fact, let's not just italicise that, let's underline it too; heart.
I don't want to spoil it - and it's been a long time since I've felt that about a show, especially since they killed Stringer Bell - so go watch it yourself. And if you're not happy by "Got you", then I'll personally refund the money you spent watching the episode for free.
It's nice when something turns out to be good, instead of middling, mediocre, or bad. Who knows? Maybe it'll happen again sometime soon...
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