Swimming With Men

Swimming With Men (Oliver Parker, 2018) may not be the most groundbreaking of films. It’s story follows a well trodden path, but of course does not tread water (boom-boom). Our hero is Eric (Rob Bryson) who we see from the beginning is an accountant that takes solace from his swim in the pool at the end of the working day. It seems that life has little meaning, his wife (Jane Horrocks)  is moving in different circles as she’s a newly elected councillor and seems to have more purpose in her life than he does, along with different priorities.

Being an accountant, Eric is course good with numbers and calculation. It’s this prowess that introduces him to a group of male synchronised swimmers that he meets at the pool. They are having problems with a routine and Eric point out that there is a mathematical solution in that they need an even number of swimmers to succeed, so they should lose a man from the group. The swimmers discover that Eric’s personal circumstances have taken a turn for the worse. This leads to them eventually deciding that they need to increase their number for the routine to succeed. The group then recruits Eric so that they can save the routine and save him at the same time

There then follows a charming film about group dynamics, striving for a common goal and navigating your way through life. Eric finds that there is a Fight Club style element to the group. The first rule, he finds, is not to talk about swim club. It’s more than that though, it’s about brotherhood and moving away from mid life drift and ennui. The film therefore gives us an equation as to how one might stave off a lonely death, do stuff. Find something to do, preferably with other people, there’s possible longevity in common purpose. There’s charm in this story and this film and an emotional maturity as well, it’s worth taking the initial dip and immersing yourself in this.

The Day I Lost My Shadow

The Day I Lost My Shadow (Soudade Kaadan, 2018) The story of Sana and her son and what they do to survive in today’s Damascus, torn apart by the never ending civil war. In the normal course of events in their day; the electricity is switched off, they glory in having running water, Sana clears up broken glass at work and they live with the fear that the war might come ever closer and into their apartment.

Events spiral out of all proportion after they run out of  bottled gas in the apartment and Sana goes off in search for this with a friend and her brother. They survive an incident with a taxi driver evading a checkpoint and then face further misfortunes. This leads the intrepid trio almost spiral down a rabbit hole where they maybe don’t end up in wonderland but in the middle of and environment where they meet a number of characters who offer a number of different challenges and opportunities, with varying degrees of good and poor fortune.

Maybe this is the experience of living in a war zone, especially when the war in question is a civil war. Maybe you don’t always know which way up and down is, and who is on which side as they may have changed since yesterday. The film highlights that the victims of these wars are ordinary working people, it’s their lives that are turned upside down, it’s they that become collateral damage, when all they are trying to do is to live their life.

It’s these people that live in the shadows and as the title suggest it’s death that takes these shadows away. The distinction is made with Hiroshima, where all that was left of the dead was their shadow. This is a fine film that reminds us what happens when a nation falls in on itself and maybe it’s the act of these people living, or attempting to live a normal life, that will eventually lead a country lie Syria out of darkness.

You Were Never Really Here

Utterly bizarre and marvellous film. It’s about a hitman called Joe who lives with his mother, he’s engagingly played by Joaquin Phoenix. Thing is that his past is always with him, as is normal, but this seems to skew his world view somewhat. We have then this mix of violence and the surreal as Joe travels through his waking dreams. Lynne Ramsay as ever weaves a delicate and beautifully balanced film, she and the novelist Jonathan Ames are such a wonderful storytellers, this is sublime. Even though I’m not sure of what I’ve maybe seen.