'London to Brighton' - Gareth Allen

London to Brighton

This film I think, is a very good film that uses the genres of social realism and the genre of thriller. They use these two to coincide with each other during the film, which makes this film one of many 'glued to your seat' films.

One reason why I think that this is a very good film is because they use timings in this film to great effect. They use flashbacks during the film which gives the audience knowledge of what has happened in the past few hours. For the first of the two flashbacks that we see, it goes from Kellie sitting on the beach looking out into the ocean, to using a cut to her in an urban area walking down a street. At first the audience don't realise that it is a flashback, but once you see a close up of her face (she doesn't have a bruise on her eye) then they know that it is before this has happened. At the next flashback, you see Kellie with Joanne being held at gunpoint, to using a cut to seeing car lights on a road. Both of these times are times when it seems as though Kellie is reflecting on what she has got herself, and Joanne into. These flashbacks I think are good as, you are seeing the story of the film in the real time, but you are also seeing the story of what has happened the night before.

The thriller aspect of this film is also done very well. They do a lot of scenes in this film where you know what has happened, but you haven't seen this happen. During the second flashback you hear Joanee screaming after she has been taken upstairs. Once Kellie has gone in and seen if she is ok, you hear noises such as punches being thrown about. This is while the camera is fixed on the door that Kellie has just walked in so the audience don't see what is happening, but we can hear everything.

The sounds that you hear in the film are genrally all diegetic sounds. This is giving the audience the realism of the sounds that the characters in the film are hearing. The one time where the sounds are non diegetic is when there are the two cars driving to the farm. The audience are unaware of where they are going or what is going to happen once they get to where they are going, which is why they will have put non diegetic sounds in here. The sounds you hear are eeire and it's a slow pace to the track. This I think is the perfect time to be putting music into a social realism film. This is so that you can hear the same diegetic sounds that the characters are hearing throughout the film.

Gareth Allen