Set the Thames on Fire | Little White Lies

Set the Thames on Fire

14 Sep 2016 / Released: 16 Sep 2016

Person with bleached hair wearing turquoise and white clothing, with a pained expression on their face.
Person with bleached hair wearing turquoise and white clothing, with a pained expression on their face.
3

Anticipation.

An intensely odd looking low-budget comedy. Could be quite a ride.

4

Enjoyment.

Surprisingly touching with a brilliant visualisation of a knackered London.

3

In Retrospect.

A weird and wonderful debut.

Lon­don meets its mak­er in this charm­ing, fraz­zled shoe­string road movie about two pals brav­ing the apocalypse.

An imag­i­na­tive and sur­re­al exhi­bi­tion of obscen­i­ty and decay, Ben Charles Edwards’ debut fea­ture is a bizarre dystopi­an adven­ture that recalls the absurd and fan­tas­ti­cal visu­al style of Ter­ry Gilliam. This sur­pris­ing­ly touch­ing tragi­com­e­dy revolves around love and friend­ship, and it’s a gem of low-bud­get British cin­e­ma that ignores dis­cussing the polit­i­cal issues that come with soci­etal col­lapse, instead focussing on some­thing more emo­tive and soulful.

The sto­ry fol­lows two out­casts, Sal (Max Ben­nett) and Art (Michael Winder), as they booze their way through a flood­ed and bro­ken Lon­don. It is their bid to escape to green­er pas­tures. An artist and a fugi­tive from a psy­chi­atric ward, the two form a bond amid the mad­ness. On their jour­ney they meet thugs, magi­cians, thieves and socialites, each one a sad, lone­ly reflec­tion of the fall­en city.

As dystopi­an visions of fall­en cities go, Art and Sal’s home town is sub­lime­ly warped. On a shoe­string bud­get, Edwards has craft­ed a bril­liant land­scape cov­ered in grime and dirt. The sky is black, the Thames has over­flown, and the police are gas mask-wear­ing brutes. It’s a tru­ly depress­ing world.

But Edwards doesn’t just dwell on the mis­ery of the world he cre­ates. He uses the back­drop and its absur­di­ty to try and get to some­thing very human and raw. For him, the cen­tral point is the strong friend­ship between Art and Sal. This is not just a sto­ry about a des­o­late, cor­rupt waste­land – it’s also about the neces­si­ty of love and com­pan­ion­ship in dire straits. The film is strewn with char­ac­ters that reflect this, all hav­ing loved and lost. For exam­ple, Sal­ly Phillips’ ele­gant for­mer socialite is prim and prop­er, but lone­ly, telling Art and Sal of her old trips abroad with a past love. A poignant moment, it rein­forces the beat­ing heart of the tale.

Admit­ted­ly, it can be a fun­ny, sil­ly film, with Noël Field­ing offer­ing a gen­uine­ly unset­tling per­for­mance as a sex-crazed man-baby (obvs). But the jokes are book­end­ed with ten­der­ness. While fans of Field­ing might be expect­ing a hang­over from the era of The Mighty Boosh, this is not just sur­re­al­ism for the sake of it. It’s bonkers, but with a point. Far from being pure dystopi­an tragedy, Set the Thames on Fire is a weird­ly warm­ing, visu­al­ly affect­ing fable about need­ing a mate when the whole world has gone to crap.

Set the Thames on Fire is in cin­e­mas from 16 Sep­tem­ber, on demand from 19 Sep­tem­ber and on DVD from 26 September

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