Filth
2013 · Directed by Jon S. Baird
Original language: English
- crime
- drama
- comedy
The story
A bigoted junkie cop suffering from borderline personality disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way in a bid to secure promotion.
What it’s like
Grimy Edinburgh winter light, sodium streetlamps bleeding orange into wet tenements, and a restless handheld camera that lurches into the protagonist's head whenever his highs and hallucinations take over; the palette runs to sickly greens, nicotine yellows and hotel-room blues, with bright, garish flashes of fantasy cutting through the grime. Sound is a pulsing, abrasive mix of 90s dance and electronic cues that drop out abruptly into ringing silence. Vibe: sordid, manic, darkly funny, with a corrosive edge that feels like a bad night stretching into a worse week. Best for a late, alone viewing when you want something bleak and sharp rather than soothing. Pacing is jagged and episodic, the tone shifts from farce to anguish without warning, and the central figure is a repellent, self-deceiving man whose unraveling is tracked with unnerving intimacy rather than redemption. Intensity is high: frequent drug use, sexual content and explicit crude language, sustained sexism and racism in dialogue, violence that is sudden and nasty, and hallucinatory sequences that feel disorienting and grotesque. Not gentle. For viewers who enjoy transgressive black comedy and unreliable, self-destructive protagonists.
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