Puffball (Nicolas Roeg, 2007)

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Nothing
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:04 am

#26 Post by Nothing » Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:52 am

It was shot on the Isle of Man, I think.

It's sad, really, that Nic was denied UK funding for so long and then, when it finally does happen, it sounds as if the result has been somewhat compromised - I know he was developing* this script way back in 2002 - and also that the press/industry are generally trying to see the worst in the film. Clearly not up to the standards of Donkey Punch.

As for Xan Brooks, the less said about that slimey, subterranean excuse for a journalist the better.

Just another day in the British film industry.

*developing = taking notes from 12-year-old morons at the UK Film Council

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ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
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#27 Post by ellipsis7 » Sat Jul 19, 2008 6:21 am

Nothing wrote:It was shot on the Isle of Man, I think.
Ireland - North & South actually.... Keyed in quite a bit of funding from agencies (Irish Film Board, Northern Ireland Film & Television Commission, UK Film Council all chipped in) and tax-based mechanisms (Irish Section 481)...

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MichaelB
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#28 Post by MichaelB » Sat Jul 19, 2008 6:48 am

ellipsis7 wrote:Ireland - North & South actually.... Keyed in quite a bit of funding from agencies (Irish Film Board, Northern Ireland Film & Television Commission, UK Film Council all chipped in) and tax-based mechanisms (Irish Section 481)...
I assumed it had been shot in Ireland (for some reason I didn't get press notes, which usually confirm such things), because that's where it's set and there's no other apparent reason for the story to have shifted there from the novel's Somerset.

And the Canadian funding input presumably explains Donald Sutherland's brief, elliptical cameo.

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ellipsis7
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#29 Post by ellipsis7 » Sat Jul 19, 2008 6:58 am

MichaelB wrote:And the Canadian funding input presumably explains Donald Sutherland's brief, elliptical cameo.
Yes that would be another piece of the jigsaw - there's an Irish-Canadian Co-production treaty, which I presume facilitated this, and also productions like the Showtime TV miniseries THE TUDORS, which is now shooting a 3rd series at Ardmore Studios...

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MichaelB
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#30 Post by MichaelB » Sun Jul 20, 2008 2:16 am

Philip French redresses the balance at Guardian Newspapers with a very fair hearing:
Beginning with Performance and ending with Bad Timing, the Seventies was a great decade for Nicolas Roeg. Since then, his work has been patchy. Puffball, a transposition from Somerset to Ireland of Fay Weldon's 1980 novel, his first film for some years, is slight and uncharacteristically straightforward, though Roeg has dealt with sorcery before in his likable The Witches. Adapted by Weldon's son Dan, it interweaves the lives of an architect (Kelly Reilly), who becomes pregnant by her fiancé while restoring a country cottage in County Monaghan, and her neighbour (Miranda Richardson), a farmer's wife, attempting to have a son with the assistance of the potions and spells of her superstitious mother (Rita Tushingham). A curious mixture of Cold Comfort Farm, Straw Dogs and Rosemary's Baby, Puffball is certainly watchable.

Robin Davies
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:00 am

#31 Post by Robin Davies » Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:48 am

ellipsis7 wrote:In the actual film review page of The Guardian today, Xan Brooks totally lacerates PUFFBALL, giving it a meagre 1 star rating...

Cruelle!!!...
Too cruel for my money. I wouldn't dare to claim that Puffball is anywhere close to Roeg's best work but this vicious review seems simply to be offended that an old director should have the audacity to put sex scenes in his movies. I seem to remember similar accusations were aimed at Antonioni when he made Eros. Presumably these dreary critics would insist that beyond a certain age directors should only make pipe-and-slipper movies about pensioners accepting the dying of the light with wry good humour.

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MichaelB
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#32 Post by MichaelB » Sun Jul 20, 2008 3:22 pm

It's riddled with spoilers (obviously), but the BBFC classification report is very entertaining.

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