The Arbor (2010)

Highly Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director: Clio Barnard

Cinematographer: Ole Bratt Birkeland

Composers: Harry Escott & Molly Nyman

Cast: Christine Bottomley, Neil Dudgeon, Robert Emms, Natalie Gavin, Manjinder Virk, George Costigan, Jimi Mistry, Monica Dolan, Neil Dudgeon

Strikingly photographed and disquietingly scored, Clio Barnard’s deliberate and innovative yet devastatingly moving documentary, filmed with actors lip-synching to recorded interviews and dramatized scenes from its subject’s eponymous play, gradually builds up a picture of the life of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and her legacy, with particular attention paid to the drug-fuelled plight of her eldest daughter, Lorraine, a young woman of mixed race who has known nothing but pain and suffering. Iain.Stott