Am now in Bristol in the midst of the Shohei Imamura retrospective down at the Arnolfini. First screening last night of Ballad of Narayama, a title I hadn’t seen for quite some time, and my, had I forgotten how good it was! This is arguably Imamura’s most perfect film, although perhaps I should hold off my judgement because, to my shame, I have never actually seen Profound Desire of the Gods, which gets a very rare UK screening on Sunday. For those interested who can’t make it to Bristol, the retro is travelling up to the ICA at the end of the month, then not long after up to Glasgow. Full day of lectures and discussions about Imamura tomorrow, with me delivering one such sermon trying to set Imamura’s body of work into some sort of context within the 1960s.

Anyway, even though I’ve now moved onto the next thing, I still hope to find time to piece together some of the fragments of thoughts about the various films that played at Raindance, before the whole festival disappears from my memory into a murky haze. The next film under the spotlight is the winner of this year’s Best UK Feature, Down Terrace, directed by Ben Wheatley. This is a film that has come out of absolutely nowhere this year. It received its international premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, where it won best screenplay and Next Wave best feature, so with only two festivals it’s already won three prizes – a pretty impressive track record, for sure. The film was produced by Mondo Macabro’s Andy Starke, and is a far cry indeed from his last project, the Pakistani zombie movie Hell’s Ground.

Nevertherless, it’s still a pretty eccentric mix of black comedy, realist drama and some particularly grisly murders – imagine The Sopranos directed in the style of Eastenders. If you’re into Brit humour and directors such as Shane Meadows, chances are you’ll love it. Director Ben Wheatley has an impressive background in TV comedy, and many of the cast will be familiar from such recent cult series as Spaced, Extras, The Office et al. Many of the others are non-professionals. One thing I never realized until the Q&A also, is that it was not only shot in the house where main actor Robin Hill grew up, but his father in the film, Bill, is actually played by his real-life father, Bob Hill, in a brilliant performance – his improvised reminiscences of the 1960s were hysterical. Sharp dialogue, tight pacing and a perfect balance of acerbic with and nihilism, this was indeed a worthy winner, and I’ve no doubt it’ll go on to even greater things. Anyway, here’s a snap I took after I popped out for a celebratory drink with director Ben Wheatley, main star Robin Hill and David Schaal (Uncle Eric in the film – you’ll recognize him as ‘Taffy’ from The Office) at The Blue Posts in Rupert Street.

For those who know nothing about the film, the trailer’s here.

Down Terrace trailer