Blood Cells (Joseph Bull and Luke Seomore, 2014)

So there’s a moment when a character in this film explains to someone that the light from those stars was shining years ago and has only just arrived — then and now. For that matter, the light from the cinema screen left microseconds ago — then and now. And the film was made a year or so ago — then and now. Cos that is just like memories innit — then and now.

So Adam (Barry Ward), the first man, the elder son, is haunted by the death of his father some years ago due to fall out from the BSE crisis and frankly he’s gone off the rails. There is no farm any more, he’s got a string of women across the UK and still does bits and pieces of casual farmwork. But now, Aiden, the younger son, is having a baby, or his partner is, and Adam’s got to go home and get his shit together.

So obviously he looks up old friends and ex-lovers, because that’s the best way to get one’s shot together. There’s hitchhiking past pylons, there’s bus journeys past pylons, there’s car journeys past pylons and there’s taxi rides past pylons and there’s walking past pylons.

If you like pylons, then we have a movie for you.

The rest of us not so much.

Shit gathering seems to involve much drinking and gate crashing birthday parties of 18 years olds and hanging out with jailbait girls. Adam seems to prefer young women — although the woman in Rhyl is not quite that young. I guess he hasn’t quite grown up — and we see Adam and Aiden in flashback as children too. Then and now.

We get a lot of shots of characters from behind — which is as well because Ward kept reminding me of Greg from the 1970s version of Survivors. The back of the neck keep us focused. Of course, if he were a Sontaran he’d have a probic vent that we could use to knock him out. Ward has one of the finest back of necks I’ve seen all week.

So it turns out this was a debut film — and whilst the debut Slow West was a long 84 minutes because it was packed with details, this is a looooooooooooooooong 86 minutes because it’s packed with the back if necks and bloody pylons and windfarms for variety.

So it also turns out that Gucci funded this micro budget film as part of the Venice Biennale and it’s the first British film to be so funded. I hoping it’s the last as Gucci should stick to fragrances rather than film making because this is a stinker.

Imagine if filmmakers made fragrances. HAL9000 by Kubrick. Competition with The Duke of Burgundy, which listed its perfumes as I recall. And was Citizen Kane in comparison.