Censor

Film: Censor

Year: 2021

Director: Prano Bailey-Bond

Writer: Prano Baily-Bond and Anthony Fletcher

Starring: Niamh Algar, Michael Smiley and Nicholas Burns

Review:

This is a movie that I got turned on to thanks to going to the Gateway Film Center. I try not to watch trailers, but it is difficult when I go to the theater with Jaime. This is one that I caught part of and decided that I wanted to check it out. For date night, we decided to see this. Aside from a bit about the plot, I came in blind. I’m now giving it a second viewing to see where it would fall for my end of year list as well. The synopsis is after viewing a strangely familiar video nasty, Enid (Niamh Algar), a film censor, sets out to solve the past mystery of her sister’s disappearance, embarking on a quest that dissolves the line between fiction and reality.

Now this is an interesting movie here. It is taking place in the United Kingdom during the ‘video nasties’ era. I’m not going to delve too much into the history of this, but Enid Baines is one of the censors that would watch films and then report on what needed to be cut in order to make a certain rating or to be banned outright in the UK. She is known to be much harsher than some of her co-workers as well.

Enid has an interesting past. She had a younger sister of Nina (Amelie Child Villiers) who disappeared when they were children. Enid is holding out hope that her sister is still out there. She gets some powerful news while out at dinner with her parents of June (Clare Holman) and George (Andrew Havill) are filing a death certificate so they can move on. They want Enid to move on as well. She doesn’t take the information all that well.

This news doesn’t help as things take a turn at work. There is a man that killed his wife after watching a movie called Deranged. The accused doesn’t remember doing what he did and is dubbed ‘The Amnesia Killer’. Somehow, Enid’s name was leaked to the press as one of the censors that saw a violent scene of eating a victim’s face and approved it. This causes outrage and she gets obscene phone calls. It also causes the press to follow her, wanting a statement.

As the stress mounts on Enid, she watches a movie at work called Don’t Go in the Church. It was brought in by Doug Smart (Michael Smiley). He’s a sleazy producer and the film is done by a notorious director by the name of Frederick North (Adrian Schiller). The movie messes with Enid as the events in the beginning are like what happened to Nina before she disappeared. This causes her to have a panic attack as she remembers. Enid tries to find out more about the director and this leads her to his most popular actress, Alice Lee (Sophia La Porta), who she believes to be her missing sister Nina.

Enid is plagued by nightmares of the Beastman (Guillaume Delaunay) who is in the movie she saw. She is also convinced that Alice has been forced into acting and something horrific is going to happen to her. Much like the synopsis stated, the stress and pressure mounts which causes Enid to lose grip with reality. Can Enid figure out what is real and what is fantasy before it is too late?

Now that is where I want to leave my recap of the movie. There are some interesting layers to this movie. This era in British film history of the ‘video nasties’ is where I want to start. I didn’t learn about this until I got into podcasts. It is fascinating to me and part of the credit I need to give here is to Duncan with his podcast of Doing the Nasty. He has directed me to the documentary about this for a more in-depth look about this fascinating idea. There were politicians who were afraid that children, working class adults or even dogs could be affected by watching violent and filthy movies. I’ve ran into censorship of certain movies and video games that inconvenienced me growing up, but on the scale this was done is crazy. It is just interesting hearing their thoughts on some films and how strict they went with others that were overkill in my opinion. I do like that it feels like the writer and the director understood this era and brings that to the table.

With that fleshed out, I like that the idea of why the ‘video nasties’ is explored. Some might think it is stating that watching too many horror films makes someone descend into madness. I don’t think that is what they’re getting at here. It feels to me it is stating that people who are susceptible to this shouldn’t watch them. Enid is fine in the beginning. I believe the stress of the information given to her by her parents, seeing a horror movie that is eerily similar and she so badly wanting to find her sister causes her to fall apart like she does.

This movie wouldn’t work though without a good performance from Algar. I think she does well as giving us a baseline for the character of Enid. We don’t need a lot, but we get enough of her before she starts to lose it. I think there are a lot of forces working against her. Her parents give the initial shock. Then it seems like there is a reporter with someone on the inside. We never figure out who though. She so badly wants to find her sister and relieve the guilt for her disappearance just adds another element there. With each one of these, we see the character losing it even more and she did a great job. I’d say the rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed to push Enid to where she needs to end up.

I do need to shift to some thing that I found as a negative originally. This is a really slow burn. Jaime didn’t care for it due to how boring it was to her. That’s not to say she thought the movie was bad. The investigation isn’t as exciting as it could be. I’ve come to realize though, this isn’t the important part. What they decided to focus on was more of the mental state of Enid. There was something I didn’t pick up on the first time and it took a podcast to throw the idea out there. Seeing it that way, this movie does culminate in a flurry and it worked better after the second viewing.

Then the last things to go over would be the effects, cinematography and the soundtrack. For the former, it did look like they went practical. There aren’t a lot of used and many of them we’re seeing on television as characters are watching things. The blood looked good though and this aspect was well done. The same could be said for the cinematography. I think it does well giving us the feeling of what Enid is going through. There is some great editing during the conclusion that really worked for to show the duality of what Enid thinks is happening and closer to the truth. Then I’d say the soundtrack fit for what was needed.

So then in conclusion here, I liked some parts of this movie. It is interesting setting this in the UK during the ‘video nasties’ era and giving us a censor who due to her mental state shouldn’t be watching the movies that she is. I think there is a good idea and mystery here. It works even better after this second viewing. Seeing the breakdown of Enid is good, especially with how well Algar plays the role. The effects that we got are solid, giving it a touch of the sleazy movies that this movie is referencing. I also like the effects and cinematography for the climax as well as the conclusion. It is interesting and disorienting. I can’t recommend this movie to everyone. You really need to enjoy slow burn films and even then, I can see a lot of people not liking it. For me, I know find this to be a good movie after this second watch.

My Rating: 8 out of 10