Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Blue Black Permanent (1992)

Director: Margaret Tait

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A first feature from veteran avant-garde film-maker Tait, a septuagenarian Orcadian. A work of extraordinary emotion, the film takes the form of a remembrance, with troubled Edinburgh photographer Barbara (Imrie) attempting to tell her boyfriend (Shepherd) the story - sketched in flashback - of her mother Greta (Stevenson), who died in the sea off Orkney when Barbara was nine, some 40 years earlier, leaving her guilty and confused. This is about the struggle to give shape and meaning to life, and it's rare to see a film that attempts to do this so directly. The presiding spirit (and imagery) is that of the sea: its intimations of mystery, overwhelming elemental and impersonal forces, rhythm and eventual balm. But Tait also seems miraculously to invest the ordinary (scenes are simply and unostentatiously shot) with equal mystery, cutting to a close-up of a pebble beach, not a face, at moments of revelation. Even the awkwardness of the present-day scenes with Imrie and Shepherd, as they wander in their car or through the streets, she talking, he listening, seems surreal. A film that strikes deep chords.

Author: WH 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Margaret Tait

Producer: Barbara Grigor

Cast: Celia Imrie, Jack Shepherd, Gerda Stevenson, James Fleet, Sean Scanlan, Hilary Maclean full cast

Duration: 86 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.