I saw dirty pretty things, which is a great, sad thoughtful film. Essentially the underside of immigrant London, full of cash in hand temporary work and a feeling of desperation and some hope. I think that this is one of my films of the year, so far. It also made me realise how little what I impacts people who share the same streets as me, as one of the film's characters says "you have never seen us before because we are invisible, we clean your toilets and drive your cabs."
It made me think of several other films like "Timeout" or properly L'emploi du temps, a film about a frenchman who loses his job and pretends not to, it follows his gradual drift away from reality, he becomes hooked on the travelling aspect of his job, not wanting to get off.
Also the film set in Margate called Last Resort from a few years ago, following the life of a recent Russian arrival who claims asylum and gets sent to Margate with her son, when her English boyfriend fails to show up.
All these films show the edge of consumer society or look up at it from the position of no job or no places in society.
Buy Dirty Pretty Things, Last Resort or Time-out from amazon.
Stephen Frears, director of DPT, was on Desert Island Discs this morning. A very interesting man, although with slightly scarey music tastes. He talks of a friend who taught him that 'life and education are really the same thing, they're intertwined'.
Should be available to 'Listen Again' on the Desert Island Discs page for a week.
Lucy