It’s astonishing to think that Safe is only just over an hour long; it feels like the length of a feature film but one where every minute is filled with something meaningful.
Safe depicts the everyday life of Gypo (Aiden Gillen), Kaz (Kate Hardie) and Nosty (Robert Carlisle)- young, homeless and living on a knife’s edge. It’s not simply a case of giving them a warm bed and a roof over their heads; as Nosty rages and mutilates himself in an attempt to be sectioned, we realise that there is no safe place for these characters. They can snatch brief shelter from the streets but not from the dark place within their minds.
Director Antonia Bird doesn’t provide any easy answers; there is no ray of hope that suggests spending more money on social resources will eradicate the problem. Safe is an uncomfortable watch as it forces the viewer to look at the people who in life they would turn away and walk straight ahead.
Whilst Al Ashton’s script is good, it is elevated to greatness by Bird’s directing and the performances. Hardie and Gillen are particularly gut-wrenching as Gypo and Kaz- inseparable yet the harsh realities of their lives means they cannot be together. This is not simply a case of actors pretending to be homeless and miserable; impotent rage is the dominant emotion here. Hardie in particular has scenes that burn in your mind.
Technically Gypo isn’t homeless; he has a flat which he never goes to. The character’s tantrums annoy everyone around him but Gillen shows Gypo as a vulnerable boy crying for help but unable to express why he cannot live in a house.
The soundtrack by Billy Bragg is well chosen, marking the film as political but also drawing out the humanity of the characters without falling into a sentimental trap. It’s that humanity which makes the unbearable injustice of the situation a rewarding watch.
Safe depicts the everyday life of Gypo (Aiden Gillen), Kaz (Kate Hardie) and Nosty (Robert Carlisle)- young, homeless and living on a knife’s edge. It’s not simply a case of giving them a warm bed and a roof over their heads; as Nosty rages and mutilates himself in an attempt to be sectioned, we realise that there is no safe place for these characters. They can snatch brief shelter from the streets but not from the dark place within their minds.
Director Antonia Bird doesn’t provide any easy answers; there is no ray of hope that suggests spending more money on social resources will eradicate the problem. Safe is an uncomfortable watch as it forces the viewer to look at the people who in life they would turn away and walk straight ahead.
Whilst Al Ashton’s script is good, it is elevated to greatness by Bird’s directing and the performances. Hardie and Gillen are particularly gut-wrenching as Gypo and Kaz- inseparable yet the harsh realities of their lives means they cannot be together. This is not simply a case of actors pretending to be homeless and miserable; impotent rage is the dominant emotion here. Hardie in particular has scenes that burn in your mind.
Technically Gypo isn’t homeless; he has a flat which he never goes to. The character’s tantrums annoy everyone around him but Gillen shows Gypo as a vulnerable boy crying for help but unable to express why he cannot live in a house.
The soundtrack by Billy Bragg is well chosen, marking the film as political but also drawing out the humanity of the characters without falling into a sentimental trap. It’s that humanity which makes the unbearable injustice of the situation a rewarding watch.