Page 31 - Fujifilm Exposure_23 Wildlife_ok

feature in focus
very mixed community, but also to draw from what was in the market for our interiors.
“That was in terms of the colour and the fabrics that we used, putting them into the sets we had. We wanted to create an atmosphere in the film which had colour in it, so that it was- n’t what you might be expecting from the big downer movie about drugs.”
The decision of how to portray the actual drug usage was also of critical importance.ThestoryseesyoungPaul, not yet a teenager but somehow old before his years, struggling to deal with a mother hooked on heroin, unwilling
to give up on her despite the pressures of external forces on their lives.
The onus is on the drama to at least suggest why drugs might be so attractive to characters like Mel, but the film as a whole has a wider responsibility to depict them realisti- cally. One powerful scene follows the careful preparation by Paul (impres- sively played by newcomer Harry Eden) of his Mum’s breakfast tray. Only after a moment of two do we realisethatthis‘breakfast’is,infact, her first fix of the day.
“We downplayed that early scene a lot,” MacKinnon explains. “That was a
decision to keep it quite ordinary, he doesn’t know what it is so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. That’s maybe why it may have had some impact.”
At other times, MacKinnon eschews the rather busy, kaleidoscopic style that seems to be the form for other films that depict drug usage and attempt to convey the ‘high’ to their audience.
“I did that before on Needle,” he continues. “But here, instead of it being done with a camera I wanted to do it with the actor, in this case, Molly Parker. I wanted it to be a much more human feeling.”
In the end that is the emotion that Pure transmits most effectively, a com- passion for characters whose lives and circumstances might not be totally familiar, but audiences can empathise withtheirplightallthesame. It’sa satisfying drama that offers one more contrast to the enduring collaboration of two men who first worked together
on Small Faces in 1996, following it up with Trojan Eddie and Hideous Kinky. “John and I have worked a lot
together,” MacKinnon chuckles, “we’ve got history. I think we’ve got an inter- esting and sparky relationship that I enjoy. I hope he does too, but I’m not sure. John and I challenge each other quite a lot, and I like that because you in the end you always get something out of it.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Pure, screened in this year’s Regus London Film Festival, was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture negative
Photos (main): Molly Parker; from top left: John de Borman BSC and Director Gillies MacKinnon; Harry Eden