Saturday, 19 October 2013

The Selfish Giant

The Selfish Giant


The Selfish Giant is a British 2013 drama directed by Clio Bernard inspired by a short story written by Oscar Wilde also called the selfish giant. The film follows the story of two teenage boys who get caught up in the world of copper theft. The film was screened at the Directors' Forenight section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Europa Cinema awards. The film was nominated for the 2013 Lux Prize and was screened n the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

In the original story written by Wilde it follows a Giant who builds a wall around his garden to keep the children out which causes it to stay  in winter until one day children slip through the wall and start playing in the trees. The giant eventually sees the error of his ways and tears down the wall thus winter finally ends and spring returns. Before doing this though the giant notices a little boy  who is too small to climb the tree. the giant feels sorry for him and helps him out. Eventually as the narrative progresses the giant grows old and it is revealed that the small child he help years ago is actually Jesus Christ. At this point the giant finds him under a beautiful white tree and talks with the child. The child mentions "You let Me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with Me to My garden, which is Paradise.". That same afternoon the giant happily passes away and his body is covered in blossoms.

The main theme or message which runs in the story is the idea that if you give happiness, you gain happiness

Unlike its source material which feature fantasical themes such as giants and orgres and also religous themes such as Jesus christ as it seems that the film is taking a more gritty and realistic tone one review on IMDB describing it as "basically how capitalism works: not by making an academic movie with statistical figures, but by telling the highly capturing dramatic story of two teenagers in an English community who need to collect scrap to make ends meet."

From such a review one could assume the link between the story and film is apparent in the form of how one could suggest that the giant and his wall which kept the children out could be possibly mirrored as capitalism in this stories context and how it can be hard really to move up in life living under such a system with circumstances thrown at you. Could the director be comparing capitalism to this wall?



From watching the trailer I have noticed that unlike other media texts with a similar premise such as television series Breaking Bad i.e turning to a life of crime to survive or being forced into it by the circumstances offered to you, the trailer above doesn't glamourise crime as other shows may do using a grey-tone wash to convey a gritty look to the film communicating to viewers that this film is about social realism and "representing the world as it is".




Review by the Guardian website is comparing the directors work to that of Ken Loach who was known for his social realist films such as Kes a British drama released in 1969 which follows the story of about a young working class boy who has little hope in life and is bullied, both at home by his physically and verbally abusive half-brother, Jud, and at school. From researching both films it appears that unlike other media texts on offer these texts rather focus on real life and possible real life issues rather than glamorous of peoples lives and roles in films such as the "buddy cop" genre or other action or crime based films.

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