Audience reaction to April

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15 response slips were returned. The breakdown, and comments were:

  • ‘Excellent’: 1 vote
    • This film either had to be ‘Excellent’ or ‘Poor’, so I’m going for the former.  René Magritte meets Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’?  A piece of real cinema – begging for a full seminar on its meaning
  • ‘Very Good’: 4 votes
    • Deliberately painful to watch and overlong.  The underling story was good and I eventually understood the fantasy sequences to be a reflection of her opinion of herself.  The soundtrack and cinematography were very good.
    • “April is the cruellest month, breeding” – Does art evoke life or imitate it?  Pace of film the key element – eventually I was absorbed.  Amazing use of non-diegetic sound.  Every edit came as a shock!
    • Powerful, challenging and uncompromisingly stark.  This made “Vera Drake” look like “Watch with Mother”!
    • Relentless
  • ‘Good’: 3 votes
    • The abortion in real time was very affecting, so was the thunderstorm on my ears!
    • I think I need to lie down for a few days.
    • Obscure, unsettling.  Need time to think further…
  • ‘Satisfactory’: 1 vote
    • I thought we’d reached the limit of female pain in the films we’ve already shown, but boy was I wrong.  I feel this film was constantly challenging me not to look away, I failed.  Not sure I was ready for this, and I suspect others weren’t too.  But I applaud on the subject so harrowingly.
  • ‘Poor’: 4 votes
    • Not an easy watch.  Abortion scene was too long and not a film I would recommend.
    • 2½ hours of Obstetrics! Didn’t understand it at all.
    • So slow – I fell asleep.  Beautiful photography though!
    • Awful.  I’m glad I didn’t bring a guest to see this depraved film. I had to leave early it was so horrible.
  • + 2 comments returned without a grade
    • Muddled.  Not sure I could sit through that again
    • As Alan Smith says, ‘Not for me’

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Feedback PDF

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One thought on “Audience reaction to April”

  1. A poor film that lacked a tighter reign on the director. The lack of editorial intervention and reliance on a held single shot became tiresome. Good acting performances from the cast were in vain as the director was allowed to follow their ponderous plot. Needed a much clearer and tighter storyboarding

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