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„The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael“

by Thomas Clay (GB 2005)

Robert lives in a bleak English village and escapes the teasing of his schoolmates by means of drug excesses with other young outsiders. Social envy and boredom defines their everyday lives. When Robert breaks into the house of TV chef Jonathan Abbott one night with his friends he experiences the ecstasy of the film’s title, which develops into a sanguinary massacre.

 

“The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael”, the debut of director Thomas Clay who was only 24 years of age at the time of shooting, ranks among such films like Kubricks Clockwork Orange, Hanekes Funny Games and Noés Irréversible, features whose relentless depiction of cruel and violent individuals occasionally led to extreme audience reactions. Yet the film, which has been shown at the festivals of Cannes, Pusan and Rotterdam, cannot be reduced to the explicit portrayal of violence any more than the other ones. Combining starkly formalist images, classical music and a precise portrait of emotionally stunted teenagers in a small British coastal town, Clay delivers an artificial and simultaneously unsettling view on society. Without pity he observes a world that is doomed.

The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael / GB 2005 / 96 min / Dir: Thomas Clay / With Danny Dyer, Lesley Manville, Daniel Spencer, Ryan Winsley / Format: 35 mm / OmeU / World Sales: Wild Bunch