Keeping Mum
Almost all my early memories of film are the same: the continual renting of a real DVD from an actual shop, talking my parents into buying snacks, and sitting in the living room with the whole family to watch it. As the youngest of four siblings, it’s unsurprising that I first fell in love with film as a child watching the extremely non age appropriate black comedy, Keeping Mum. It was the first film I had seen in which the setting, language and characters were incredibly familiar, and yet the plot was still absurd enough to enchant my nine-year-old brain.
To this day, Keeping Mum remains my favourite film. The cast is objectively incredible – Maggie Smith, Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Patrick Swayze all play starring roles, and play them damn well – the plot and humour remains current and engaging over a decade and dozens more viewings later. However, it is the characters that keep me coming back, and every time I do there is a new character, relationship or experience I can now relate to. The personal levels of this film remain touching and incredibly relevant despite the caricatured setting and the even more bizarre plot. This film taught me the value of comedy, gave me my love for British film and instilled an enduring respect and adoration of Maggie Smith, all of which are integral to me as a viewer today.
- by Rowan Keith
JAWS
IF you are familiar with Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review podcast, you will know that Kermode frequently mentions that the film Jaws is not about a shark. My Dad has listened to this podcast for years, and ten-year-old me was very confused when she overhead a man shouting about how a shark film was not even about sharks. After hearing this, I asked if I could watch this non-shark shark film – and it has stuck with me to this very day.
At ten, I loved how the film made me scared but also made me want to watch more. In a weird way, I loved that a film could scare me so much that I would dream about sharks swimming around the ladder to my bunk bed. Jaws spurred the beginning of my interest in studying film.
I love that films can have underlying stories much more complex than they appear on the surface. Most of all, I love Jaws because it was the first of many ‘Friday night film nights’ with my Dad.
The memories I have of waiting until my younger sister was asleep, and then sneaking downstairs really quietly, will always make me smile. Jaws was the first of my Friday night films, and began an obsession with film that remains to this day.
- Jamie Hampton
Peter Pan
THE 2003 remake of Peter Pan (directed by P. J. Hogan) was the first moment I fell in love with film. It was one of my favourite movies as a child and I obsessively watched the behind the scenes featurettes almost as much as the film itself.
Visually, Peter Pan is stunning and each aspect of Neverland has magical qualities, such as the bubble-gum pink clouds that the children can bounce on. Neverland was meticulously planned and purpose built in huge sets and the level of detail and planning was something I had taken for granted as a young viewer. While the illusion of cinema was eventually shattered as I grew older, what lay behind it was still intriguing. I still find the film beautiful despite the aging effects.
The sound track for the fairy dance scene helps it remain a magical and timeless sequence. Since Peter Pan, I have always been curious about how the world of the film has been constructed, and I am always more excited by practical effects and sets than the reliance on CGI that we have today
– By Lizzie Quinn
The Royal Tenebaums
I FIRST watched Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums in 2012, when I was only thirteen years old. Around this time, I started listening to more alternative music that personally interested me, rather than whatever was fed to me by my surrounding culture. I watched movies that were more niche or out of the way, recommended by friends and creatives I admired.
By the time I finished the famous ‘Needle in the Hay’ scene in The Royal Tenenbaums, I knew I loved film. Things like shot composition, editing, use of music, things that I had thought about in passing but never properly, were coming to the forefront of my mind and forcing me to acknowledge the potential of the medium.
It was aesthetically aggressive towards its viewer, but totally beautiful. Equal parts jealous of his skill and wanting more of the same, I spent the better part of the next fortnight watching every Wes Anderson film so far released, and saw both The Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle of Dogs on opening day at cinemas.
I wouldn’t say I am the biggest Wes Anderson fan – he is not even my favourite director – but I am wholly indebted to him for giving me the love for film that I still hold today.
– Ryan Allen
