Rayting:
6.0/
10 6.5K votes
Language: English
Release date: August 20, 2021
After viewing a strangely familiar video nasty, Enid, 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.
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User Reviews
I'll start by saying I am very glad I did not watch the trailer before viewing this film, and it is easy to see why some felt duped. To be clear, this is NOT a thriller. Do not go into this film expecting answers. Instead, it is an often-surreal (and in my opinion fascinating) look into a character's downward spiral. It is stylish, well-acted, and especially considering this is Prano Bailey-Bond's first feature it is surprising brave and bold with its narrative decisions. The film's greatest strength is its ambiguity, I also think this is where the film loses a lot of people.
I see a lot of reviews here complaining that this film has nothing to say, which is absolutely not true. However, it doesn't spoon feed you a concrete moral message such as "censorship = bad". It instead confronts these topics from multiple angles, both showing how ridiculous the conversation was around film during the video nasty era and also showing how a film can actually affect a vulnerable person's mind. I wouldn't go as far as to say it'll blow your mind with it's insightfulness, but it is at least trying to give the audience something worth thinking about, and I appreciate that.
Also, 84mins! Perfect length for a film like this, in fact some of my favourite films of the past couple of years have been below the 90min mark and I hope this trend continues.
Fmovies: The synopsis for 'Censor' sounds ridiculously good. It's such an intriguing idea for a movie. Sadly, as is usually the case, the reality isn't quite as entertaining as the concept. The movie started off well and actually had a really gripping and clever set-up period. But as the film went on it chose to go further and further down the strange and bizarre route and it just lost me.
This is a debut effort for filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond. He shows some real promise. Even though I didn't love the direction the film chose to go in, the writing was still very sound. At least he picked a route and went with it convincingly. Usually the dialogue in these low-budget, debut films is noticeably bad, but here it was well above average I would to say. It was interesting and felt natural. There's certainly some talent behind the scenes here.
The film is short at only 84 minutes and it moves a long at a reasonable pace, so you are never caught checking your watch. There's enough to like here for people to enjoy, and it's possible some people will prefer the plot-path the film decided to go down more than I did. I will give this one a light recommendation. It might just pleasantly surprise you.
Starts off interesting, although slow, then the last five minutes turns into some artsy fartsy crap that made no sense...
Censor fmovies. Censor is set in the UK during the '80s video nasties era and primarily revolves around Enid (Niamh Algar), a video censor. Enid starts to connect the exploitation films she works on with her own tragedy (involving her sister who went missing), eventually unable to distinguish between reality and hallucination. The first act really caught my interest - co-writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond acknowledges the era for its crime boom (which was wildly attributed to the rise of violent, low-budget horror films), and recreates the appropriate aesthetics.
The tone is seriously bleak and accentuated by the right colour grading. Seeing VHS tapes, VCRs, picture-tube TVs on one side and a deteriorating mind on the other - that's how I would sum it up. While Enid seeking closure regarding her sister is an intriguing direction that the makers went in, I'd have loved to see more meta-references to film-making and film-censoring in those times. That's what the first act, in fact, sets up. Enid's descent into mental chaos becomes the film's focus in the second act, and the meta elements only serve as background noise from that point on. The slick production aside, both the social commentary and the completion of Enid's character arc come off as relatively underdeveloped.
The final act goes bonkers. I like how the skewed aspect ratio offers a different visual perspective. The way the Welsh director uses VHS fuzziness to enhance the horror quotient is also quite impressive. Now, whether the writers' decision to take the film in a 'psychologically affecting' route instead of the 'investigative mystery' route excites you (or not) will ultimately determine your amusement levels. I did like Censor to a fair extent, and will definitely be looking forward to the director's next.
Positives:
Negatives:
Summary Thoughts on "Censor": The workings of the UK film censors have always fascinated me, and here's a novel insight into their work during a very difficult period in their history: the National Viewers and Listener's Association, headed by the fearsome Mary Whitehouse, was up in arms at the potential damage to people's (and particularly children's) mental wellbeing from the influx of "video nasties" arriving in homes on VHS tapes. The film needs to be applauded for coming up with such a novel storyline.
What I found surprising (and ironic) is that this got away with only a "15" certificate. Editor Mark Towns suggested to me, in a private communication on Twitter, that the BBFC rated it thus due to the "context" in which the violence was set. But I remember the first 'X' film I saw. It was Brian De Palma's "The Fury", which (from memory) was purely rated as such for the final scene in which John Cassavetes's character explodes in a gory fountain. Judging from "Censor"'s "15" certificate, things have become significantly more permissive in recent years!
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I think this could have been a really interesting film, but unfortunately it was not.
It became very irritating towards then end, trying to be clever and 'artistic' yet ultimately just succeeded in being annoying.
I've no idea what the point was, or if there was even meant to be one?