DOCMAKER AS A DISNEY CARTOONS’ CHARACTER

IDFA-2023 news

«This Blessed Plot» - an eccentric docu-comedy from screenwriter Adam Ganz and director Marc Isaacs. The inhabitants of Essex town of Thaxted play versions of themselves – or they are like they are not, as a matter of fact we don't know…as nobody of us don't know, whether we play ourselves during all our lives or pretend to be «real»… Isaacs as usual is brilliant in his as cool as cucumber & Baster Keaton narration, which is becoming more and more hilarious each five minutes. Not without a tragic nuances, of course. A lot of journalists, attended IDFA press-screening, admitted, that they just fell in love with the film. 

     Ambitious and a bit shy documentary filmmaker from China – pale young girl named Lori – appears in the village with her camera  to record the local traditions. Definitely she hardly understands what’s going on around her – her English is also shy, but that’s certainly not a question of language, but of cultural happening. Thus the genre of the documentary is a king of cultural happening.

    Lori, a creature intimidated by her fantasies and pretensions, looks like a Disney cartoons’ character: her eyes continually widen, occupying two-thirds of her face; her eyebrows frown, presenting a comic ballet. In general, these physiognomic pantomimes of her reactions to the local scandals (that unfold in front of her) are pricelessly charming. She’s drawn into the world of Keith (Keith Martin), a footbal (Arsenal) fan. He's partly crushed by the recent loss of his wife. But her ghostly voice speaks to Lori on different items and and this voice draws Lori into melodramatic intrigues (which tails are already burried in the grave).

    The narration is edited with black-and-white excerpts from «Ripe Earth», the Boulting brothers’ early film from 1938, also set in Thaxted.

     The British Film Archive website tells us the following about the film:

«…Documentary made by John and Roy Boulting focusing on harvest time.

Early morning scenes around a farm, featuring pigs, chickens, geese and cattle. The livestock are let out into the sunshine. A tractor pulls a binder while boys and men stand in a cornfield waiting for rabbits to break cover. Two rabbits are shot. The sheaves of corn are stood up to dry in stooks, before farm workers relax and eat lunch by a hedge. The sheaves are pitched into wagons and carted to the stack. At a local windmill, the grain is ground. There are scenes of Morris Dancing and a harvest supper. In the local church the Reverend Conrad Noel leads the harvest thanksgiving service...»

     It’s no coincidence that Boulting brothers became recognized satirists. «This Blessed Plot» is also a satire on all kind of documentary filmmakers epiphanies.