1 August 2013

Trailer Analysis: FILTH (2013)



The upcoming film 'Filth' is a peculiar combination of comedy and extreme psychodrama with all sorts of oddities taking place in the film's action, and I believe the trailer helps portray this remarkably well. This generally unusual film is best represented in the first eight seconds of the trailer in which a series of adjectives, inter-cut with split second shots from the film, flash up on screen, such as (but not limited to) 'Sick', 'Depraved', 'Obscene', 'Kinky' and 'Offensive' which can be attributed to the film as a whole but also to the lead character portrayed by native Scot James McAvoy, who, within the confines of  the trailer, breaks the fourth wall and asks a young woman "What does that make me then?". Her response "You're a Policeman' introduces us to the character with whom the audience is typically supposed to relate with, despite his own special brand of madness. To the soundtrack of C2C's 'Down The Road', a popular contemporary song, McAvoy's voiceover introduces us to his world, and his own words, "of course me, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson" who immediately after the completion of this line has released a young child's balloon into the air and raised both middle fingers at the, admittedly, rude child.

The next set of title cards appear with the line 'Some cops...play dirty' as we are shown the wild and crazy behavior of our protagonist, with the claim of the next words 'but Bruce Robertson...plays filthy' - a connection to the film's title - confirmed in the shots where he places his male member into a photocopying machine and presses the enlarge button several times, to the dismay of a dissapointed (brief) sexual partner which only seems to incite maniacal laughter on his part. We flash through a series of images to the see the words 'From Irvine Welsh, Creator of Trainspotting', a film which has experienced a cult following with presumably the same expected of this, and a then a mix of surreal imagery and that of Bruce's reality in which his friends and colleagues question his sanity, a fact acknowledged by him with the line, "I think there's something seriously wrong with me." A meeting with his psychiatrist then quickly descends into a rapid series of shots depicting strange encounters and plenty of shots of Bruce laughing his head off while all manic hell breaks loose, while quotes from critics praising the film appear on screen to the tune of the Sister Sisters and the song Filthy/Gorgeous (an obvious choice given the lyrics and the film's title). An extended scene towards the end of the trailer has Bruce introduce an otherwise plain, by the book sort of character to the world of clubbing, by spiking his drink, and so in the final shots we see Eddie Marsan in full on dancing mode with a group of young men, rubbing his nipples in a rather sexy manner in the process, as Bruce gives a cheeky look to end the trailer. Overall, this is a very fun and energetic trailer with a number of comic moments while also having some darker, more stimulating scenes which I guess gives a good impression of the actual film and that is what is important - producing a strong, interesting trailer while not misleading audiences into seeing the film they weren't expecting as such.