Posted by JG on August 15, 2016 at 03:02:41 user JG.
In Reply to: Re: 2016 Film posted by Paul Crisp on August 14, 2016 at 11:25:05:
Saw it yesterday at the British Film Institute! The cinema was full of children; the director and script-writer were there for questions afterwards, and there was a forest of hands as small children queued up to ask about how the film was made etc. Purists will hate it, as it's only vaguely related to the Swallows & Amazons story; but the director and script-writer underlined repeatedly how hard they'd worked to keep the essence and spirit of the original story, and I think they've succeeded. (This is almost the '13th book'). They also assured us that there was no CGI or 'green screen' - the young actors really did do everything, including Roger falling overboard in a real lake and being rescued (though there was a diver underwater - coincidentally, Virginia McKenna's son - ready to support Roger if needed). While the boats were not actually [spoiler alert] being dragged along by a seaplane at the end, the children really were in the boats being dragged hair-raisingly along (by a speedboat, on a Scottish loch). The rain on the camp was real, and the children were ad-libbing in that scene. Lovely scenes of incompetently frying fish etc. And 'Tatty' is a triumph (and NB John at one stage calls her 'Tattymouse') - clearly differentiated from our own Sophie, but Tittyish in a different way. Who knows what everyone will make of the Blacketts (Cumberland accents, apparently living in a rather basic way in a formerly nice house), but I warmed to them.
Re Martin H's post about the children not being sailors, we heard from the director that they were all tested as being comfortable on water, and John and Susan were given several weeks of sailing lessons (John in particular taking to it as a natural), which I'd say is enough for a film. As someone who's done a bit of acting, I can't buy 'most youngsters can perform a role when required' - not roles like these.
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